While there are mechanisms allowing for individual complaints under most other international human rights instruments, as yet there is no such mechanism linked to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is a serious matter of discrimination against children.
CRIN is part of coalition of organisations that is campaigning for the establishment of an individual complaints mechanism in the CRC.
Read more about this in our CRC complaints mechanism toolkit.
How to file a complaint with other human rights mechanisms
The UN
Where authorised by a State party to a relevant UN convention, a number of UN Committees with a focus on discrimination accept complaints from individuals and groups, including children, who claim that their rights have been violated by that State party.
Regional human rights mechanisms
The European and Inter-American systems of human rights have also accepted complaints of discrimination against children. For example:
- In November 2007, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in D. H. and others v. Czech Republic that the Czech Republic had practised racial discrimination by wrongly channelling Roma children into remedial education schools.
- Yean and Bosico v. the Dominican Republic was the first case in which the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled on the prohibition of racial discrimination in access to nationality under the American Convention (August 2005).
Visit our section on guides for the UN and international human rights systems for information on how to submit complaints to these bodies.