The CRC at 30 in circa 100 words
With everything happening around the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), we thought it could be an opportunity to (re-)introduce the CRIN team and share our thoughts for what we see as key for the CRC in the next few years, along with our biggest fear and our hope for the future.
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Charlotte Cooper: Campaigns Coordinator
I work on campaigns at CRIN because after 30 years, we still have to campaign for children's rights to be fully respected. For example, we need to ensure children's rights aren't mobilised against other rights, like the rights of people marginalised for their gender or sexuality (who are children too!). I fear that we'll look back on this as the time we failed to act quickly or radically enough to prevent climate collapse. I hope that positive changes will come out of our unstable times, like new movements and shifts in power, not just changes for the worse.
Diana Gheorghiu: Legal and Policy Intern
With more and more of our lives moving online, I am particularly interested in the impact of the internet on children’s rights. Do children have access to the internet? How are they educated about the internet? Who collects and uses their data - and do children consent? How can children express themselves online? And if their rights online are breached, what can be done? I fear that in an increasingly insecure world, adults will put children’s rights last. But I hope that in an increasingly connected world, children’s voices will become more prominent.
Isabelle Kolebinov: Geneva representative
For me, it’ll be important to develop the children's rights perspective on environmental matters. This means talking about the right for every child to live in a healthy environment, the right to choose not to be contaminated by toxic substances in her/his daily life, the right to be heard and to have her/his views taken into account and the right to access justice. I fear that my children and grandchildren will not be able to live a decent life on our planet. And on that note, I hope that adults will listen to the children and will start taking action to preserve the environment!
Miriam Sugranyes: Art Director and Illustrator
For me, it’ll be important to ask more questions, look at the margins of each CRC article and create new questions to reinvent and reinforce the Convention for all stories, not just The (Hi)story. I fear entitlement, and comfort and normalisation of the status quo when the world is shouting for constructive changes and new approaches. I hope for love and a corrective lens.
Larisa Abrickaja: Regions Manager
My job is to make sure CRIN’s policy work reflects the grassroots voices in different regions of the world. I am particularly interested in access to justice in relation to institutionalisation of children, and putting children’s rights at the core of civil society’s response to anti-gender movements. My biggest fear is that CRIN will become that type of international NGO that is lost in its ‘Western thinking’ and forgets about the rest of the world. Maybe let’s call it neo-colonialism. I hope that people in the human rights sector start looking beyond ‘their own field’ and think seriously of intersectionality. I also hope to reconnect with CRIN’s old partners and establish contacts with new audiences!
David Gee: Consultant Writer
I am a consultant working on the UK campaign to end child recruitment into the army and it's astonishing that in 2019 the CRC still allows armies to train children to kill, as long as their parents say it's ok - despite all the evidence showing the harm caused by joining the armed forces too early. We're winning the arguments - most States now only recruit adults - but the Committee on the Rights of the Child needs to keep up the pressure on the rest, and then we'll get there. My fear - a big one - is that States will increasingly ignore the CRC and their other treaty obligations. My main hope for the CRC is that more children learn about it and start to use it in their own interests around the world.
Leo Ratledge: Legal and Policy Director
In terms of what’s next for the CRC - we are only beginning to realise the impact of human rights in the digital environment. There is not a single right that children have that doesn’t apply or that isn’t facing radical challenges in the face of developing technology. I’m afraid that in the face of rising populism, we’re entering a human rights recession. My hope is that by more creative campaigning, we can create a human rights renaissance.
Lianne Minasian: Deputy to the Director
For me, it’ll be important to ensure that donors recognise that smaller children's rights NGOs like ourselves play a key role in challenging the status quo - and that we adapt to the changing landscape by creating partnerships with new allies. I'd also like to see that more and more children are involved in conversations about, and actions on, upholding their rights and that adults genuinely listen to what they have to say. My fear is that we’ll have no rights to fight for as human ego, greed and ignorance will destroy the planet. But my hope is that people - and I mean everyone, not just global leaders - will put egos aside, learn to care, and work together to find solutions to the myriad crises we face.
Victor Sande-Aneiros: Writer and Editor
Part of my job is to guard the language of children’s human rights, so in the coming years I'd love to see under-18s' civil and political rights talked about explicitly in those words, especially at the UN. Rights are empowering and so is the language we use to describe them, so long as that language is accurate and doesn't patronise or misrepresent. However, the cynic in me fears that language like ‘child participation’, ‘family rights’ and ‘radicalisation’ - all of which have been used to water down children’s rights - will continue to be used uncritically. But I hope I’ll be proven wrong.
Maria Than: Design and Outreach Officer
I’m looking at artists and activists who are working on the environment and the right to protest. I’m also looking at the link between children and data within the digital environment and how creative technology can be used for social good. I fear that further implementation of data collection technologies in children’s environments for the sake of convenience will ignore ethics. I hope that people will be aware of convenience versus what’s right and will be able to discern between their comfort and the dangers of different digital tools.
Sabine Saliba: Regional Advisor for the MENA region
We have been repeating for a while now that the CRC is a living document. I think it's time to revisit the CRC for it to take stronger positions on certain issues. I am working on the citizenship debate in the Middle East, with a focus on gender equality and LGBTQ rights. Less conservative guidance from the CRC would be very useful for people on the ground. I fear that we’ll let our planet die and that our children will bear the responsibility of our failure. And I hope that women and children will one day be equal citizens of this world.
Veronica Yates: Director
I think it’ll be important that we stop tiptoeing around so-called sensitive issues. That children's economic and political rights get the attention they deserve. That we get out of our echo-chambers. That we master the power of humility. And that we build a creative coalition of advocates, writers, philosophers and artists - of all ages - to draw a map of a rights respecting world to better guide us. I fear I will suddenly realise that all our work contributes to maintaining the status quo, thereby speeding up the decline of humanity... all the while thinking I'm fighting against it. I hope that if we can build more and more unlikely alliances at all levels of society, our collective powers can shift the current imbalance that is causing so much injustice and destruction.