Twenty years ago the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Since then, 193 countries have ratified the Convention and its principles have taken root in regional, national and local legislatures.

In the past two decades, more than 70 countries have incorporated children’s codes into national legislation, as part of law reform efforts based on its guidelines and provisions. The Convention has also supported substantial advances in child survival and development, with notable achievements including the sharp reduction in annual numbers of under-five deaths, stronger disease control, lower rates of under-nutrition, strong gains in accessing improved drinking water sources, and expanded efforts to combat HIV and AIDS.  

Children’s rights are steadily rising up the international agenda. Survival and development rights are prioritised in the Millennium Development Goals, and major internationally agreed goals increasingly reflect ambitions for the rights articulated by the Convention.

In the UK, however, we are consistently reminded about how far we have to go on improving child welfare. The 2007 UNICEF report into comparative child well-being across industrialised countries rated the UK bottom, while a recent report by the OECD points out that the UK still has a long way to go to tackle youth unemployment and social problems like teenage pregnancy and drinking. Child poverty still remains a huge problem in the UK and the government is set to miss its own target of halving this by 2010. 

Progress at the top of government, however, has been marked through the Sure Start programme and children’s centres and, in recent years, the government has invested heavily in early years' care and education. The creation of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), the children’s plan and Children’s Commissioners has put child welfare at the heart of government. The UK is also due to release its first Action Plan this November on the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s concluding observations. Encouragingly, the process for drafting the plan has seen regular consultation with young people. Devolved governments have also made notable progress; the most outstanding example is the decision to increase the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland - in direct response to the observations by the Committee. Scotland has also launched its own action plan ahead of the UK-wide plan.

While there has been significant progress in the UK, we believe that our vision for children can only be achieved by making the CRC part of UK law - making it binding on public agencies and applicable in the UK courts in the same way that The Human Rights Act (HRA) is. This would give the Convention real "teeth", creating legal liability for public authorities. A fully incorporated CRC would directly challenge our youth justice system, recruitment to the armed forces and the causes and effects of child poverty. 

All governments should make children’s best interests the primary test of governance. At the national level, budget decisions should take into account their effect on child rights—in particular, on services related to social protection. At the international level, both donor and recipient countries must give greater consideration to how development assistance works for children. The minors at greatest risk of missing out on essential services and protection, include children from marginalised, remote and impoverished communities; minority or indigenous populations; those who are disabled; or those whose mothers have a low level of education. Girls continue to run a higher risk than boys of missing out on an education.

The review next September of the Millennium Development Goals, and this November’s anniversary of the CRC, will give us a chance to see just how far we have come and how far we still have to go.