Submitted by lratledge on
Children are affected by all of the sustainable development goals, whether poverty, hunger, inequality or climate change. Though the goals focus on sustainable development, they are inextricably linked to human rights generally and the rights of children specifically. As UNICEF has noted, the rights enshrined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, run through the Sustainable Development Goals and so the realisation of these goals must take into account the corresponding rights of children. The new goals are not revolutionary or a radical reinvention of rights and development standards, they set targets for development and the realisation of rights that already exist.
This submission focuses on two main issues: access to justice and violence against children. This focus is not to undermine the importance of realising children’s rights across the full ambit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but to highlight aspects that risk being underdeveloped. This submission argues that access to justice should be seen as a goal that underlies and supports the realisation of all of the other goals, while goal 16.2, the elimination of violence against children, must build on the UN Study on Violence Against Children in order to be effective.
This submission was made in response to the call for input for OHCHR's publication, "Protection of the Rights of the Child and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development".
