How CRIN can help you moving forward

Remember that you are not alone in campaigning for children’s rights. CRIN can offer information and tools for advocacy, many of which are online. As part of your planning process for legal advocacy or your own workshop, you could consider using some of the following resources:

  • Access to justice for children report for your country, which sets out the status of the CRC under national law, how the law treats children involved in legal proceedings, the legal means available to challenge violations of children’s rights, and the practical considerations in challenging violations using the legal system. All reports are available here: https://www.crin.org/en/home/law/access

  • Subscription to our online newsletter “Children in Court CRINmail” which covers examples of strategic litigation. You can subscribe here: https://www.crin.org/en/home/what-we-do/ crinmail.

  • The Legal Database, a searchable database of examples of how the CRC has been used by high-level courts in all regions and other significant children’s rights cases. The Legal Database can be found here: https://www.crin.org/en/library/custom-search-legal.

  • Strategic litigation case studies, available here: https://www.crin.org/en/home/law/ strategic-litigation/strategic-litigation-case-studies.

  • The Children's Rights Wiki which brings together recommendations made by UN and regional human rights bodies, decisions by national courts and advocacy work carried out by national child rights advocates in one place. It can be found here: http://wiki.crin.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Main_Page. Each country page also includes a national law section, including a general overview of the country's legal system, the status of the CRC in national law, provisions for children’s rights in the Constitution, a sense of relevant legislation/case law, a guide on how to conduct detailed legal research, and an analysis of the country's legal compliance with the CRC as assessed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

  • CRIN’s guides and toolkits which can be found here: https://www.crin.org/en/guides.

    • Guide to strategic litigation aimed at legal and nonlegal NGO staff which can be adapted to local settings and procedures.

    • Guide explaining how to use UN and regional human rights mechanisms to pursue children's rights advocacy.

    • Legal assistance toolkit which outlines that legal assistance for children should not be viewed as a luxury, but must be recognised as a human right.

    • CRC complaints mechanism toolkit on how to use the CRC complaints mechanism under the third Optional Protocol to the CRC.

    • Challenging discrimination toolkit on diverse areas of discrimination against children and how to successfully challenge them.

    • Media toolkit on how to get your message across and depicting children in a way that promotes their rights.

    • Child-friendly justice toolkit on children as victims, witnesses, offenders or complainants.

    • Inhuman sentencing toolkit which details advocacy ideas for organisations or individuals in States subjecting children to inhuman sentencing.

    • Child sexual abuse and the Holy See campaign toolkit which constituted CRIN’s first step in our campaign for transparency, accountability and reform in the Catholic Church.

Other support by CRIN for national organisations includes: hosting campaigns on the CRIN website and providing news coverage of national advocacy efforts.