Making children's rights known: ensuring awareness of children's rights among adults and children

Human rights, including children's rights, must be known about to be useful. In a Child Friendly City, children's equal status as rights-holders will be promoted by all those working with and for them. The Convention on the Rights of the Child assigns to States a specific obligation to make its principles and provisions "widely known, by appropriate and active means, to adults and children alike".

And article 29 of the Convention, on the aims of education, requires education to be directed at, among other things, "the development of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms". If a State or a city is committed to build a culture of human rights, it is logical in that process to have a special focus on children. Including human rights and teaching about the Convention in the curricula of schools is an important start. In addition to the content of lessons, the ethos and the organisation of schools must reflect the Convention.

As a part of this process, initial and in-service training should be organised for all those who work with and for children - including politicians and government officials - to promote awareness of, understanding and respect for children's human rights.

City government will need to take advice from children themselves on the most effective means of disseminating knowledge of their rights to them and to their parents and others. Partnerships with non-governmental organisations, youth groups and with the media, as they have a crucial role to play in communication and information.

Ensuring knowledge of and respect for children's rights is an unending, life cycle task.

EXAMPLES

The CFC Secretariat has gathered a number of examples making children's rights known at both local and national levels of government, and from low-, middle- and high-income nations.

Each example includes the following documents:

• A worksheet describing the project (accessed from the CFC Database)
• Other documents, such as publications, guides, reports and strategies, developed by the project (when available)
• A project review prepared by the CFC Secretariat, based upon in-depth documentation of the project and developed on the basis of a standard research protocol (when available)
• Tools developed by the project (when available)