Local issues on the global stage: Reporting on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Local issues on the global stage

Reporting on the UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child

Sarah Te One, Andrea Jamison, and Mereana Ruri

Introduction

Understanding the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC) (United Nations, 1989) is one thing; understanding state party (government) obligations and the reporting process is another. Since Aotearoa New Zealand ratified UNCROC in 1993, our government has submitted 5-yearly progress and compliance reports. Unfortunately, Action for Children and Youth Aotearoa’s (ACYA’s) parallel reporting process confirms a 25-year litany of missed opportunities by successive Governments to encourage respect for children’s rights, enhance their wellbeing, and mitigate the effects of poverty, poor housing, and income inequality. We argue that the circumstances that prevent children fully enjoying their rights could be avoided if governments embedded a children’s rights approach into decision-making processes, policies, legislation and practice (ACYA, 2015, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c; Ora Taiao, 2016; UNICEF NZ and Save the Children NZ, 2016).

In its most recent report the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2016) was clear that Aotearoa New Zealand could and should be doing much more to honour its obligations under UNCROC by implementing a child rights framework based on a common set of values, aspirations, and processes that apply across all areas of government and civil society. The problem is that, aside from the issues directly affecting children’s lives, there is a very limited and patchy understanding across the public sector of what is meant by a child rights framework.

If you are a child rights advocate, the lack of reference to UNCROC is frustrating. While policies and legislation (e.g. the Oranga Tamariki 2017 Bill) addressing child protection and wellbeing issues are welcome, the fact remains that a potentially powerful mechanism—UNCROC—languishes in the ‘too hard, too controversial’ basket, and its potential to support the work of government and civil society remains unrealised.

Understanding UNCROC

UNCROC is founded on four General Principle articles. These are:

•to include each and every child (Article 2)

•to act in the best interests of the child (Article 3)

•to ensure the child’s right to life, survival and development (Article 6)

•to respect the views of the child (Article 12).

Article 5, which acknowledges the role of parents and families, is often included in the above list.

As well as the General Principles, there is a set of articles referred to as the General Measures of Implementation. These act as markers for governments to evaluate their progress between reporting cycles. Governments have a responsibility to take all available measures to make sure children’s rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled “to the maximum extent of their available resources” (Article 4). The foundational principle articles apply across all remaining articles and underpin a holistic, interdependent, and indivisible approach to complying with UNCROC.

Granting children social, economic, cultural and political rights, as UNCROC does, generates debates which can be divisive and are largely unhelpful. Some would argue that the age and maturity of the child precludes them from being responsible rights holders entitled to have a point of view (e.g. Such & Walker, 2005¹). Maturity is certainly a factor to consider and raises the question, “Should maturity be a criterion for being a rights holder?”. The counter argument is that children exist in the present and their rights matter at all stages of development. Degrees of dependency or maturity are not valid reasons for denying anyone their rights (Te One, 2011). Ultimately, children’s rights, like all human rights, are based on respect, dignity and equality.

The UN reporting process

As a signatory to UNCROC, a state party is required to report to the CRC every 5 years on progress towards fully complying with UNCROC as a whole. The process is cyclic, and in a reporting year it takes between 12 and 24 months before the CRC issues its concluding observations to the state party government. Rather than receive reports from the hundreds of non-government organisation (NGO) groups with an interest in children’s wellbeing or education or justice, the CRC requests that one NGO organisation coordinate the state party’s civil society report. ACYA is the organisation responsible for this role in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The process for reporting is iterative and can be described as a formal dialogue facilitated by the CRC. It begins with a public consultation process, leading to the government submitting its periodic report. This is followed by the NGO alternative report, submitted between 3 and 6 months later, on behalf of civil society, including children. The different submission dates allow the NGOs time to respond to the state party’s official periodic report. Then the NGO is invited to attend a pre-session meeting with the CRC to present its report. By this stage, the CRC members will have read both the states party and NGO reports.

The first meeting with the NGO is a closed session. This is a protective measure for NGOs in countries where advocating for children’s rights could put them at risk. The pre-session hearing is the only formally scheduled time where NGOs can speak to their alternative reports in a face-to-face meeting. Therefore it is important that the NGO representatives are clear and concise about what they present. Pre-session hearings are interactive, and the CRC members usually have many questions.

After the pre-session hearing the CRC publishes a list of issues for the state party to address before it appears at a formal session hearing, usually scheduled about 6 months later. The ‘list of issues’ indicates the CRC’s interests in the state party’s attention (or not) to children’s rights. The list of issues is a public document, and the CRC requires very specific answers to its requests for information. At this stage the NGOs have further opportunities to respond by submitting supplementary papers. This process allows the NGOs to contest the state party’s response to the list of issues and to raise new issues with the CRC. The final stage in this phase of reporting is the formal session between the state party and the CRC. This is public and is recorded/transmitted live via the UN website. This session is where governments are interrogated by the CRC members on compliance with UNCROC.

Whereas the NGO pre-session meeting is allocated 3 hours, the formal sessions are run over 2 days. The NGO delegation is present, with observer status. Even though the NGOs do not have speaking rights, the CRC members regularly communicate with the delegates during the breaks.

The formal reporting process ends with the CRC’s report (the concluding observations). This report, also succinct, summarises the CRC’s understanding of the state party’s child rights issues, and contains recommendations for future work towards full compliance with UNCROC.

Child Rights Connect

Engagement with the United Nations treaty body responsible for UNCROC is facilitated by Child Rights Connect, a Geneva-based organisation specifically designated to assist NGOs in the reporting process. Child Rights Connect issues guidelines for how to structure reports using cluster headings to cover broad domains such as education, health, civil rights, and freedoms (see Table 1).

Source: Adapted from Child Rights Connect, 2017

ACYA’s role

ACYA was formed expressly to produce the NGO alternative report for the CRC and to raise awareness about the issues children face via its parallel reporting process. In 2015 ACYA was mandated by its coalition partners as the country focal point, liaising with the CRC via Child Rights Connect. ACYA’s role is to meet individuals, community organisations, and NGOs who want to participate in the reporting process, and to represent their issues at the sessions with the CRC. When a children’s delegation attends, Child Rights Connect works with the CRC administrators to support their presentations.

As part of the 2015/16 reporting phase, ACYA’s steering committee developed working papers for discussion at seminars and public meetings (see http://www.acya.org.nz). Two members were delegated as lead writers of the alternative report. Depending on their expertise, other members were allocated a cluster, and consulted with their respective sectors on the issues children were facing in their everyday lives. Checking and revising with coalition members was completed prior to the final submission of the alternative report in November 2015 (ACYA, 2015).

The current status of children’s rights

While most children in Aotearoa New Zealand enjoy a safe and happy childhood, a significant proportion of children with a disability, Māori, Pacific and refugee children, and children from ethnic minorities are unable to enjoy their rights. There is now widespread agreement about the issues children face (see, for example, Child Poverty Action Group, 2014; Johnson, 2017; Office of the Children’s Commission, 2012; 2016a; 2016b). Living standards are compromised to dangerous levels: approximately 29% of children live in poverty; safe, affordable, accessible housing remains out of reach for families; and the low-income, low-wage economy has meant that the wealth gap has expanded, resulting in serious inequality. This affects children’s ability to participate alongside their peers in school-based activities, as well as in sport and cultural events and even birthday parties (ACYA, 2015; Simpson et al., 2016). The level of preventable illnesses and diseases is still too high, and, shamefully, we are still among the worst in the OECD for child abuse, neglect and violence (ACYA, 2015, pp. 13, 18). For a first world economy, this situation is unacceptable.

TABLE 1: THE ACYA PROCESS BASED ON THE REPORTING CLUSTERS AND THE ARTICLES

Cluster groupings for the UNCROC alternative report and relevant articles		ACYA process for addressing cluster content
General measures of implementation	Articles 4, 42, 44(6)	1.Situation analysis 2.Comments on the government report 3.Evidence 4.Conclusion and recommendations
Definition of the child	Article 1
General principles	Articles 2, 3, 6, 12
Civil rights and freedoms	Articles 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 39
Violence against children	Articles 19, 24(3), 28(2), 34, 37(a), 39
Family environment and alternative care	Articles 5, 9, 10, 11, 18, 20, 21, 25, 27(4)
Disability, basic health and welfare	Articles 6(2), 18(3), 23, 24, 27(1–3), 33
Education, leisure and cultural activities	Articles, 28, 29, 30, 31
Special protection measures	22, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37(a–d), 38, 39, 40

ACYA’s key themes and recommendations

ACYA’s overall conclusion was that children need greater access to social justice and fairness, including the ability to claim their rights. Currently there is a structural mismatch between processes required to ensure implementation of children’s rights and the way legislation, policy and practice are developed. There is no overarching strategy for children, nor mechanisms to ensure that the public spending on children respects, promotes, protects and fulfils their rights.² Four recurring themes emerged across the cluster domains.

1. Inconsistent and incomplete data

Our Government (even by its own admission) continues to have poor data collection systems and information about our children (ACYA, 2015, pp. 6, 7). There are inconsistencies in how children are defined (ACYA, 2015, p. 12), what information will be collected (pp. 15, 16), and how it will be shared and interpreted (p. 7). This raises two critical questions about the quality of fiscal management overseen by the Government:

•How does the Government know that it has allocated its resources and implemented responses that will meet our children’s needs?

•How does the Government know that its actions have been effective in improving the lives of children and their families?

2. Better cohesion and coordination needed

There is no coherent picture of the welfare and wellbeing of our children across government. Nor is there a coherent picture of what is being done, whether these actions are effective and where there might be gaps and the need for improvement (ACYA, 2015, pp. 4–7).

3. Both universal and targeted responses needed

A significant group of children in New Zealand require acute support and services, including children in care and protection services and youth justice systems. The Government’s recent response has been to target children it considers to be most vulnerable (see ACYA, 2015, pp. 18, 19.). Many NGOs were concerned by the narrow, restrictive and sometimes ambiguous definitions of vulnerability underpinning this work. They argued that responses would not meet the diverse needs of all children. To put this in context, there are approximately 1.165 million children living in New Zealand. The Vulnerable Children’s Action Plan work only targets 20,000 children (ACYA, 2015, p. 6). The rights and needs of other children—those not falling within a target group nor under state jurisdiction—are not being met by the Government. An important message from ACYA and reinforced by the CRC is that all rights apply to all children.

4. Spending needs to be planned

The lack of robust and disaggregated data calls into question our Government’s assertions that its policies and actions produce positive results for children and their families (ACYA, 2015, p. 57). This critical observation lends weight to the need for the Government to prioritise public spending on and investment in our children. ACYA contends that there has been a serious deterioration in the quality of services and support provided to many children, including education, care and protection, and disability support services, due to failures to take UNCROC into account in decision making.

Based on the evidence in the alternative report, ACYA proposed an overarching recommendation:

That this Government develops a rights-based framework to guide policy development, public spending and practice and that this framework should

•be underpinned by the UNCROC and the general principles of non-discrimination, best interests, life, survival and development, and participation;

•encourage data collection, research and monitoring of indicators to ensure well informed decision‐making;

•give effect to the principles of proportionate universalism; and

•have a clear focus on prevention and equity (2015, p. 3).

The themes and recommendations above were presented to the CRC in the 73rd pre-sessional hearing. Supplementary papers were submitted in response to the list of issues and in a wash-up of concerns that emerged between November 2015 and August 2016, just before the formal hearing. ACYA had structured its supplementary information to include carefully developed questions to guide the CRC members as they interrogated the Government (Table 2).

Attending the 73rd session of the CRC was a large government delegation, led for the first time by a Minister of the Crown, the Right Hon. Ann Tolley. The 10-strong NGO delegation was led by Mereana Ruri from ACYA and included the Children’s Commissioner, and representatives from YouthLaw and UNICEF NZ, and Māori public health advocates. The observer role, while silent during the session, was very active during breaks. When government representatives were unable to answer CRC members’ questions, or their answers were incorrect or incomplete, the NGO representatives passed additional information to the CRC members.

The concluding observations

The reporting cycle ends with the CRC issuing its concluding observations. It is possible to trace ACYA’s influence in the recent process (United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2016). The CRC recommended that the Government proactively work towards implementing UNCROC based on a child rights approach, emphasising the fact that the articles of UNCROC are interdependent and indivisible. Also, because of the Government’s intense focus on vulnerable children, the CRC was clear that policies should “encompass all children in the State Party and all areas covered by the Convention (United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2016 p. 2).

ECE and respect for the views of the child (Article 12)

Aotearoa New Zealand’s early childhood education sector has a strong record of support for Article 12 rights (Dalli et al., 2017). A child-centred, whānau-inclusive approach to documenting children’s learning in a respectful, reciprocal way, in theory at least, exemplifies how research, policy and practice respect children’s views, and by doing so act in their best interests. If teachers intentionally linked their pedagogical documentation to both UNCROC and the concluding observations, it would create an awareness of both documents and their potential value as advocacy tools to improve outcomes for children. Just as the sector became Te Whāriki literate, the challenge now is to become UNCROC literate by going beyond generalised comments about children’s rights to achieve a voice.

TABLE 2 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN REPORTING AND THE CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

Article 12
Questions for the CRC	Concluding observations recommendations
Consulting with children is a responsibility across government. How will officials be trained to understand children’s participation rights in particular, and children’s rights more generally? How will this be resourced? What steps are being taken to ensure consultations are inclusive and that a diverse range of children from across the country, including those with disabilities, can have their views heard?	Respect for the views of the child Develop toolkits for public consultation on national policy development to standardise such consultation at a high level of inclusiveness and participation, including consulting with children on issues that affect them. Dissemination, awareness raising and training Strengthen [the state party’s] currently limited awareness-raising programmes, campaigns, and dissemination activities, … to ensure that the provisions of the Convention are widely known by the general public, including parents, caregivers, teachers, … and other professionals working with children, as well as children themselves. Further strengthen systematic training on their responsibilities under the Convention for all professional groups working for and with children, including … teachers … and personnel of childcare institutions …

In her last public appearance in Wellington (April 2016), Anne Smith commented that perhaps the focus on children’s participation rights had been too preoccupied with Article 12 at the expense of other participation rights, such as the right to privacy (Article 16) and information (Article 17). With a few exceptions (Kellet, 2011; Lundy, 2007), these rights are seldom cited by scholars and yet they are critically important to promoting and protecting children’s participation rights as active partners in their learning and development (Smith, 2016, pers. comm.).

While respect for the views of the child is embedded in professional practice in the early childhood education sector, this is not so for other sectors. In fact, when surveyed, many agencies and ministries admitted that consulting with children was often an “add on” or in the “too hard basket” (Jamison & Te One, 2015). This is not unusual: adult assumptions about what children would say, or how they would behave, tend to prejudice efforts to consult them (Te One, Blaikie, Egan-Bitran, & Henley, 2014).

The lack of consultation mechanisms is closely linked to the fact that there is low-level awareness of and training in UNCROC. Opportunities to explore UNCROC are needed to support teacher advocacy for children to fulfil their citizenry rights. The concluding observations specifically recommend the awareness training about UNCROC and duty-bearer responsibilities (CRC, 2016, para 18, p. 5). The early childhood sector is well positioned to contribute to this work, and strong advocates are needed to ensure active involvement in developing resources.

Reflections on the ACYA process

For a variety of reasons the consultation phase for ACYA’s report was truncated. Despite our best intentions, we were unable to produce working papers for public discussion for all the reporting clusters to inform the alternative report. Reflecting on the process for the next report, the present ACYA steering committee’s strategic plan has identified that we could improve our support to coalition partners in the development of working papers. While we worked with UNICEF NZ and Save the Children and commissioned a children’s voice report, we believe we can do more to involve children and young people, both in the writing and the presentation aspects of the process. Our ideal would be to include children in the next NGO delegations to the CRC. We also intend to actively encourage input from more diverse groups, such as ethnic minority organisations and rural youth.

That said, given the fact that ACYA is a voluntary organisation, what we are most pleased with is the way in which we collaborated with our coalition partner NGO groups and individuals to produce a very comprehensive, cohesive and coherent report. Our processes for writing the report using weekly milestones and regular meetings with a small sub-group meant we felt in control of what seemed, at first glance, to be an overwhelming responsibility. In our role as the country focal point, we also co-ordinated and hosted meetings with those NGOs who had informed us that they were attending the pre-session and the session hearings. Sharing perspectives on the issues facing children enabled all parties to strengthen their arguments. These were perhaps the most significant lessons we learnt from the reporting process.

Finally, the criticism levelled at the Government about a general lack of awareness about UNCROC is also relevant in the children’s movement. We have many highly effective advocates and well-established advocacy groups able to articulate the issues facing children (e.g. Child Poverty Action Group, UNICEF, Save the Children, IHC and YouthLaw). However, we also learnt that we cannot assume all NGOs working for children understand the potential of applying a child rights framework. We still need to hold multiple, concurrent conversations about children’s human rights under UNCROC as part of our advocacy to improve their wellbeing generally and specifically.

Conclusion

Tobin (cited in Smith, 2016, p. 164) commented that “the mainstreaming of children’s rights is a deeply political project with potentially transformative consequences for the way in which children are viewed and engaged with by all actors in society”. Updates to the Education Act 1989, and the review of Child, Young Persons and their Families Act 1989 to establish Oranga Tamariki, created opportunities for our current National-led coalition government to introduce a child-rights framework into its legislative architecture. However, children and young people were not consulted in any meaningful way about the Education Act amendments, and it remains to be seen whether submitters like the Office of the Commissioner for Children, AYCA, YouthLaw and IHC, all of whom urged the Government to include children, have any effect (Office of the Children’s Commissioner, 2016b, 2017; YouthLaw, IHC, & ACYA, 2016; YouthLaw & ACYA, 2017). Commendably, young people continue to be involved in developing Oranga Tamariki (Ministry of Social Development, n.d.). The legislation to establish the new ministry is ostensibly child-centred and foregrounds the importance of listening to the child, but the substantive content does not reflect the intentions of UNCROC, particularly for mokopuna/tamariki Māori whānau, hapū and iwi.

Within government there is a limited understanding of what UNCROC means and how it can inform policy development and practice. In fact there is no observable duty to undertake UNCROC awareness training in the new Oranga Tamariki Ministry, or anywhere in the public service. This needs to change.

For children in Aotearoa New Zealand to fully access their rights requires UNCROC as a whole to be ‘mainstreamed’. Understanding the process for reporting as described in this article provides an insight into the issues raised in ACYA’s civil society reports and the CRC’s concluding observations. This year (2017) is an election year, and now is the time when the CRC’s concluding observations can be used to advocate for children and their rights. The climate is right, and there is professional expertise in the early childhood sector.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the JR McKenzie Trust for funding ACYA.

Notes

1These authors support children’s rights but discuss why they are problematic for some people.

2UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. General Comment No. 19 (2016) on Public Spending and the Rights of the Child (Article 4) CRC/C/GC/19. Retrieved from http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/TBSearch.aspx?Lang=en&TreatyID=5&DocTypeID=11

References

ACYA. (2015). UNCROC alternative report by Action for Children and Youth Aotearoa. Auckland: Author. Retrieved from http://www.acya.org.nz

ACYA. (2016a). Counting what matters: Valuing and making visible the lives of children with disabilities. Supplementary information for the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Auckland: Author. Retrieved from http://www.acya.org.nz

ACYA. (2016b). Opening statement to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Pre-session, informal NGO hearing. [Available on request from author.]

ACYA. (2016c). “Walk for a bit in my shoes … it isn’t actually that easy.” Supplementary information for the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Auckland: Author. Retrieved from http://www.acya.org.nz

Child Poverty Action Group. (2014). Our children, our choice policy series. Auckland: Author. Retrieved from http://www.cpag.org.nz

Child Rights Connect. (2017). Practical steps to engage in the reporting cycle. Retrieved from http://crcreporting.childrightsconnect.org

Dalli, C., Te One, S., & Pairman, A. (2017). Les défis de la recherche avec les enfants dans les structures éducatives (135–155). In P. Garnier & S. Rayna (Eds.), Recherches avec jeune enfants: Perspectives internationale. Brussells, Belgium: PIE Peter Lang.

Jamison, A., & Te One, S. (2015). Connecting children to the seat of power. Presentation at the Childhood Studies Colloquium, Otago University, Dunedin.

Johnson, A. (2017). Off the track: State of the nation report. Auckland, Manukau: Salvation Army Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit. Retrieved from http://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/research-media/social-policy-and-parliamentary-unit/latest-report/OffTheTrack

Kellett, M. (2011). Empowering children and young people as researchers: Overcoming barriers and building capacity. Child Indicators Research, 4, 205–219. doi:10.1007/s12187-010-9103-1

Lundy, L. (2007). Voice is not enough: Conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. British Educational Research Journal, 33(6), 927–942.

Ministry of Social Development (n.d.). Ministry for Vulnerable Children: Oranga Tamariki. Retrieved from https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/work-programmes/investing-in-children/oranga-tamariki-ministry-for-vulnerable-children.html

Office of the Children’s Commissioner. (2016a). Children in care. Wellington: Author

Office of the Children’s Commissioner. (2016b). Giving students a say in their own education. Submission from the Office of the Children’s Commissioner on the Education (Update) Amendment Bill. Wellington: Author

Office of the Children’s Commissioner. (2017). Towards a child-centred care and protection and youth justice system. Submission on the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill. Wellington: Author.

Office of the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty. (2012). Solutions to child poverty in New Zealand. Wellington: Author.

Ora Taiao: The New Zealand Health and Climate Council. (2016). Child rights and climate change in New Zealand: A background paper. Prepared for ACYA submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved from http://www.acya.org.nz/uploads/2/9/4/8/29482613/uncroc_orataiao_submission_on_climate_change_.pdf

Simpson, J., Oben, G., Wicken, A., Adams, J., Reddington, A., Duncanson, M. (2016). Child Poverty Monitor 2016 technical report. Dunedin: NZ Child & Youth Epidemiology Service, University of Otago. Retrieved from http://www.nzchildren.co.nz/

Smith, A. B. (2016). Children’s rights: Towards social justice. New York, NY: Momentum Press.

Such, E., & Walker, R. (2005). Young citizens or policy objects?: Children in the ‘rights and responsibilities’ debate. Journal of Social Policy, 34(1), 39–47. doi:10.1017/S0047279404008256

Te One, S. (2011). Defining rights: Children’s rights in theory and in practice. He Kupu, 2(4), 41–57. Retrieved from http://www.hekupu.ac.nz/index.php?type=issue&issue=14

Te One, S., Blaikie, R., Egan-Bitran, M., Henley, Z. (2014). You can ask me if you really want to know what I think. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 46(9), 1052–1068. doi:10.1080/00131857.2014.931008

UNICEF NZ and Save the Children NZ. (2016). Our voices, our rights. Prepared for ACYA submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org.nz; www.scnz.org.nz; and www.acya.org.nz

United Nations (1989). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Geneva: Author.

United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. (2016). Concluding observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: New Zealand. Geneva: United Nations.

YouthLaw, IHC, & ACYA. (2016). Submission on the Education (Update) Amendment Bill. Auckland: Author. Retrieved from http://www.acya.org.nz

YouthLaw & ACYA. (2017). Submission on the Children, Young Persons, and their Families (Oranga Tamariki) Legislation Bill. Retrieved from http://www.acya.org.nz