We must uphold Scotland’s children’s rights
I was born into a world where it felt that children were seen and not heard, when children’s rights were not ‘a thing’. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, was adopted by the United Nations in 1989, and one that grants all children and young people (aged 17 and under) a universal and comprehensive set of rights, regardless of race, religion, or abilities or where they were born. These rights, listed as ‘Articles’, cover a broad range of aspects of children’s lives, including upholding the right to special protection for children in care, good quality healthcare, housing, education, and an adequate standard of living.
There’s even an Article about the right to be registered at birth - when I entered the world in 1981, it didn’t exist – and for the first six months of my life, I didn’t either. Why it took six months to register my birth, I will never know. I also hope that a much more permanent decision about who would care for me would have been taken much earlier and I wouldn’t have experienced all the emergency care placements I did.
For today’s children, our priority in Scotland must be to protect them. Enshrining the UNCRC into law is needed in Scotland. We have to protect children and we have to go further than we are as a society.
Incorporation needs to be enshrined within organisations
Until now, children's rights in Scotland have been protected by a combination of domestic laws and policies. However, these are not always comprehensive or uniformly enforced, leading to gaps in protection and variability in how children's rights are upheld. Incorporating the UNCRC is a significant development with far-reaching implications for the rights, and welfare, of children and young people.
The UNCRC is now enshrined in law in Scotland, but it also needs to be made real through operational guidance and how organisations operate. They must ask themselves: what are we doing as an organisation to uphold children’s rights? Buy-in from public agencies is needed, for everyone to work together, if this law is going to have an impact on children and their families.
I do not think incorporation itself is going to achieve what it is hoped it will achieve without looking at the systems we use, and the existing guidance and laws. Policymakers have to look at pockets of good practice and what we're doing right, but I think we also really need to take a close look at where, as a society, we're going wrong, because if everything's great, then I’d ask, if there is an Article where the best interests of the child must be a top priority, why are there still children who are in need of care and protection experiencing multiple placements?
Equity in opportunities for children and young people
My real hope is that this new law makes a difference in equity of opportunity, and for the rights of children to be upheld. Opportunities for children to fulfil their potential should be fair, and it isn't. Organisations need to advocate for children and young people with care experience, and children and young adults need to be aware of their rights. Some form of information campaign is required, targeted at young people and at the professionals who care for them, such as social workers.
What is needed is that shared understanding of being curious as a community. The equity of opportunity for children in Scotland to thrive, by nurturing them to be the best they can be regardless of their start in life and without the stigma attached. The organisations, parents, and those with lived experience, all need support to get things right because we are a community, a village, and I hope that in a few years, we see the improvements that incorporation of the UNCRC into Scot’s law should bring.
Why I advocate for people with care experience
We know in Scotland that we need to see beyond the new legislation to what it can and should do in helping to change things. It is imperative that we stop the cliff edges of care. The right to continuing care is law, for example, but this right is not being upheld consistently throughout Scotland. We need to make sure it doesn’t fall on the shoulders of those with care experience, those who are vocal within that community, to drive equality. Who will say ‘Hang on, this is actually the law’, if we don’t?
I was lucky, I just so happened to have the support around me that allowed me to complete a degree later in life. But I do also think, where I could be now if my rights had been upheld as a child? I didn't have The Promise, I didn't have the UNCRC. I didn't have these 54 articles that say how much you should keep children safe, and that’s why I work so hard to advocate for care experienced adults, young people, and children.
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