Nov 20th is National Child Day in Canada and International Children’s Day across the world. It marks the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention is the most widely ratified human rights instrument in the world. The Convention lays out the rights all children everywhere have in the rights of provision, the rights of protection, and the rights of participation. In 1990, Canada co-hosted the World Summit for Children, which launched the Convention.
Two related conferences, coming up, are worth exploring:
The University of Ottawa is hosting a symposium of the Interdisciplinary Research Labratory on the Rights of the Child, Nov 18-20, 2009. The symposium will examine children’s right to participation. The symposium will consider how to integrate the views of children into research. From the conference website: “Research results that more effectively reflect the views of children will assist child-service and child-protection organizations in improving the intervention policies and practices targeting their young clients”.
The University of Victoria, along with the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), the British Columbia Association of Family Resource Programs and the British Columbia Association of Infant Development Consultants will host a conference Feb 4-6, 2010 entitled “The Rights of The Child” to be held at the Fairmount Express.
Selected related links:
- Canadian Coalition for the Rights of the Child
- UNICEF
- Child Rights Information Network
- International Institute for Child Rights and Development
Related immigrantchildren.ca post: Best Interests of the immigrant, refugee, culturally diverse child.
An op-ed by former UNICEF researcher Miles Corak in Nov 19/09 edition of the Toronto Star, reflects on progress made (and not made) by Canada wrt UNCRC.