WHY A SPECIAL OFFICE FOR CHILDREN?

Making the case for special or additional representation of children’s rights and interests within or alongside national human rights institutions does not deny that government must be sensitive to all its citizens, and that other large and small groups within society may need special representation too.

These are some of the elements of the special case that can be made for children:

1 Children’s healthy development and active participation are uniquely crucial to the healthy future of any society. Alongside priority for children must go concern for the environment to safeguard the planet they will live on.

2 Children are individuals - they have equal status to adults as members of the human race - they are not possessions of parents, products of the State, not people-in-the making. Governments at all levels of societies have a moral responsibility to recognise the human rights of children as individual citizens - and at the World Summit for Children in 1990, world leaders have committed themselves to high priority... political action at the highest level. If we are talking of children as all from birth to 18, as the Convention does, they are not a small group - somewhere between a quarter and a third or more of states’ populations.

3 Children start totally dependent. They grow towards independence only with the help of adults. And their dependence and developmental state make them particularly vulnerable - so they are more affected than adults by the conditions under which they live, by poverty, by poor housing, environmental pollution and so on.

4 Human rights do not stop at the door of the family home for any family member. For most children, parents are normally the first and most vigorous defenders of their human rights. But parents can and do abuse children’s rights. Violence to children within the family is regrettably common in most societies. Traditional attitudes can prevent or delay respect for the child’s own views and feelings, for their civil rights - vital to their development as active, participating citizens. In seeking to safeguard the human rights of children, the actions and inactions of parents, families and other carers have to be reviewed as well as those of governments. This is a distinct and controversial, but inescapable role for any office charged with promoting and protecting the human rights of children. And increasingly private bodies take on services to children and their activities must be open to scrutiny too.

5 Children are more affected by the actions - or inactions - of government than any other group. Education policies dominate their waking hours, public health policies target their developing bodies and life styles. Child protection is a sizeable industry. And almost every area of government policy affects children to some degree, either directly, or indirectly: try to think of an area that does not.

6 Children have no vote, no part in the political process. While there may be the beginnings of laws and policies to encourage the involvement of children in decision-making, to listen to children, in the family, schools, health services, local communities, they are everywhere still in their infancy. In most countries the views of children do not touch the actions of central government.

7 There are particular difficulties for children is using the legal system and courts to protect their rights. Responding to children’s concerns and complaints and remedying their rights requires special arrangements.

8 There are current changes in many societies which are having a disproportionate impact on children (and generally not a positive impact): changes in family structures, in employment patterns and the introduction of market forces to public services. The state of children is a very sensitive barometer by which to measure the effects of social and economic changes.

9 There are the huge costs of failing children. Governments know beyond doubt from research that what happens to children in the early years, within the family, within other forms of care, and even before birth, in the womb, significantly determines their positive, or negative, growth and development. This, in turn, determines their cost or contribution to society spread over the rest of their lives.

These points are major elements in the powerful special case that can be made for giving children high priority and special attention within government and for the development of special watchdog institutions for children’s rights.

Failure to give children a high priority Children remain largely invisible in government. They are seldom seriously considered when governments develop social and economic policies. Effective policy for children must be based on a detailed understanding of what the current position is, what children’s needs are and how they can best be met.

Inadequate co-ordination There is inadequate co-ordination between government departments, at all levels of government. Most, probably all, of the major problems identified for children cannot be solved by one department alone: juvenile crime, for example, requires support for parenting, action by departments concerned with child health, education, the environment, and many others. School drop outs or exclusions are not just an education problem - solving the problem may involve changing schooling, but also family support, health, employment, and justice too because dropping out is a prime factor in the onset of offending. And even if central government develops good policies and laws, are they effectively implemented regionally and locally?

Limited resources not used effectively Resources, which are limited in every country, are not used effectively - in particular, too often they are used to pick up the pieces rather than for prevention. The costs, for example of juvenile crime and violence, or of responding to child abuse are very high. The lack of co-ordination tends to mean that policies of prevention get left out. How many countries know what proportion of their overall budgets and their departmental budgets are spent on children? How many can count the costs of the services that are made necessary by the failures of government for children?

Failure to promote children’s responsible participation Another common failing of governments is to fail to promote children’s positive, responsible participation in society. Research in many countries has shown a growing apathy among young people about politics and the political process. If we want children to grow into a generation which believes in the democratic process, their active involvement needs to be encouraged from the earliest age.

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The first step must be to decide what an independent office for children would aim to achieve. The broad aim of promoting and protecting the human rights of children is an obligation of the government, taken on when it ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The aim of an independent office is to ensure that the government fulfils its obligations, not to take on those obligations itself.

You may want to ask yourself which of the following aims are relevant in your country?

Check the aims identified for an independent office for children against the functions/capacities of the identified existing bodies.

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A key aim of an independent office for children is to make children and their rights more visible and to promote a higher political and social priority for children. This can be achieved either by establishing a separate independent human rights institution for children, or by ensuring a distinct focus on children’s rights within a national human rights institution (a human rights commission or general ombudsman).

Human rights are universal, and it is important that the promotion and protection of the human rights of children should be an integrated part of the mainstream human rights movement. But integration must not mean invisibility.

There is no overwhelming case for separation or for integration. The debate should revolve around establishing an office that can pursue the promotion and protection of children’s human rights effectively and ensuring that it has the necessary profile, powers and duties. The following sets out some of the advantages and disadvantages of the two approaches as a basis for discussion:

This is the model adopted in the following European countries:Austria, Belgium, Iceland, Norway, Sweden.

In some countries in Europe - Hungary, Portugal, Spain, Ukraine - specialist offices for children have been or are being established within national human rights bodies.

What characteristics are needed to ensure effective work for children within a national human rights institution?

To ensure that the focus on children is not obscured it is important that:

A national/federal institution or regional institution - or both?

There are many different models in European countries: some states have more than one federal or national children’s ombudsman (for example, in Belgium there are commissioners operating on a completely different basis in the Flemish and French communities). Other states have independent regional and/or local children’s ombudsmen, linked together for various purposes (for example in Austria there is a federal children’s ombudsman and one in each of the nine lander (regions) who together form the Conference of Ombudsmen); in Spain there is the federal ombudsman with a specialist representative for children and independent children’s ombudsmen are also established in the city of Madrid and in the autonomous region of Catalonia.

(If the independent office is to have the function of responding to complaints or concerns from individual children, then it will need to have some local structure, making it genuinely accessible to children. A phone line can provide one form of contact, but complaints procedures and advocacy services will need to be locally-based).

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Last edited by Barneombudet September 02, 2003
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