Young Lives and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

It is now widely understood that poverty and human rights are intimately interlinked. Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) represented a dramatic shift in approaches to children’s development, providing a framework for addressing not only fundamental rights such as shelter, nutrition, and education, but also for children’s participation in the events and processes that affect their lives.

There are a range of attitudes to human rights. Individual rights are sometimes regarded as subordinate to the interests of communities and societies. Others hold that rights are imbued with moral authority beyond question or challenge. Between these positions is a view that international conventions carry legal, political and moral authority on account of widespread agreement, but which are nevertheless open to reflection, critical assessment, and modification.

As the most far-reaching international framework for children’s development and wellbeing in existence, the CRC is an important instrument for influencing policy and interventions for children, and is also relevant to research agendas. Young Lives research and approach to understanding child poverty draws on the four guiding principles of the CRC, including best interests of the child, their rights to life, survival and development, non-discrimination, and respect for the views of the child.

In particular, we place children’s views at the centre of our research and recognise children as active social agents. We highlight questions of children’s experiences, wellbeing, and the inequalities between different groups of children. Linked to the interrelatedness of rights, we also emphasise the multidimensional nature of childhood poverty and the importance of a holistic view of the different elements of children’s lives.

The interpretation and application of the CRC influence the design and impact of rights-based interventions in the lives of children and their families. Ensuring contextually specific and evidence-based local responses that work in the best interests of children is paramount. Human rights are universal but the CRC also emphasises the importance of traditions and cultural values.

Young Lives is in a position to assess the effects of different interventions on children through empirical research, with the goal of improving policy and practice. The CRC is thus important to both research agendas and for how key findings are communicated to policymakers and other actors.