The convention of the child

• The UN started work on the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1979 with the aim of protecting children and ensuring that all children regardless of origin have the same rights. Ten years later, in 1989, the Convention, also known as the Children’s Convention, was adopted. The Convention on the Rights of the Child contains 54 numbers of articles which together state that all children are equally worthy and have the same rights, that children should be protected and decisions that affect children should have the best of the children in focus. The basic principles of the Children’s Convention can be summarized in these four articles:

  Article 2: All children have the same rights.
  Article 3: The best interests of the child shall be taken into account in all decisions concerning children.
  Article 6: All children have the right to life and development.
  Article 12: All children have the right to express their opinion and have it respected..

Here, you can read the convention of the child

Today, 196 countries have signed the banking convention and are committed to safeguard all these rights for all children, every day. The United States is the only country that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Sweden signed the Children’s Convention in 1990 and January 1, 2020, Sweden adopted the Children’s Convention as a law. This means that the Children’s Convention has the same status as other laws in Sweden. The person who has the ultimate responsibility to comply with the convention is the state, county council and municipality as well as the bodies to which the state has allocated its responsibility to such as schools and health care. Individuals, such as parents and guardians, are indirectly obliged to comply with the Convention on the Rights of the Child by complying with the laws of the state, which in turn must comply with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is the task of the UN and its children’s rights organization, Unicef, to work to ensure compliance with the Convention.

Additional Protocols

In addition to the articles of the Convention, there are three additional protocols. The first of the additional protocols states that children should not participate in armed conflicts. The other deals with trafficking in children, child prostitution and child pornography. Both of these supplementary protocols were read to the year 2000 because the UN considered it important to specify these issues. The third Additional Protocol was adopted in 2011 and gives children the opportunity to submit complaints to the UN Children’s Rights Committee in violation of their rights. Sweden has signed the first two additional protocols.

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