Analysis of the work of special procedures


Special procedures are used by the Human Rights Council (HRC) to find out about human rights situations for a given issue or in a particular country. Read our detailed guide to special procedures.

There are special procedures with specific children’s rights mandates, namely the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography and the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children. But children have all human rights too. Not because they are "the future" or "the adults of tomorrow", but because they are human beings today. This means that all special procedures need to address children’s rights in their work.

Unfortunately, like other UN mechanisms, special procedures often ignore or neglect children’s rights. CRIN analysed the work of individual special procedures to further understand which children’s rights issues were being raised and which were being neglected.

Download our report on the Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression.