Children's rights
Parenting across Scotland has been a strong supporter of UNCRC incorporation over many years, advocating for parents and families and raising awareness of children's rights.
Current policy context
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is an international agreement of 54 articles which cover all aspects of a child’s life and the rights children everywhere are entitled to – no matter where they are born.
In December 2023, the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill was unanimously passed in the Scottish Parliament. It received royal assent in January 2024 and became an Act of Parliament. The new Act will come into force in July 2024.
Our policy work
We sit on the Scottish Government’s UNCRC Strategic Implementation Board and UNCRC Awareness Raising Communications Network, to ensure that the implementation process responds to the views, perspectives and needs of parents, carers and other family members.
We are currently working with these groups to ensure that those in parenting roles have accessible information to understand what the UNCRC means for the children they care for.
We are also members of other groups which help to promote the UNCRC. These include:
- Member of the Cross-Party Group on Children and Young People
- Member of Together Scotland
- Member of the Human Rights Consortium Scotland
Other activities
Between 2021 and 2022 we delivered a UNCRC seminar series to explore what UNCRC means for families.
You can watch these three seminars on our YouTube channel >
To support these seminars in 2022 we produced a briefing in partnership with Together. This highlights what the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the UN Committee and case law have said about children’s rights to adequate housing and family support, and how poverty denies them these and other rights.
You can read the briefing here >
We endeavour to respect and promote the rights of children and young people across all our work. For example, our recent work on children and young people’s access to hobbies promotes Article 31 of the UNCRC, which states every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.
Read more about our work on hobbies on our Leisure & play page >
