GlobalChild Platform

1. States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.
2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child’s parents, legal guardians, or family members.

– UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

The core attributes of Article 2 are:

• Non-discrimination in the realisation of all rights for all children within the jurisdiction
• Non-discrimination on the basis of status, actions, or beliefs, of parents, guardians or family members
• Special measures to address discrimination

Each of these attributes can be measured in terms of structural or process implementation or in terms of outcomes achieved through implementation as outlined in the table below. Some indicators, for instance the structural ones, may be common to all attributes. Others are common to two or more attributes, while some indicators may be relevant to one attribute only. An attempt has been made to balance the use of objective and subjective data indicators as well as qualitative and quantitative ones.

These are some ideas that children from around the world shared with us during the Global Child Rights Dialogue (GCRD) project:

1. Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
   • Target 3.2 By 2030, end preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age, with all countries aiming to reduce neonatal mortality to at least as low as 12 per 1,000 live births and under-5 mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1,000 live births.
2. Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
   • Target 4.5 By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations.
   • Target 4.a Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all.
3. Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
   • Target 5.1 End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.
4. Goal 10: reduce inequality within and between countries.
   • Target 10.2 By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status.
   • Target 10.3 Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard.
5. Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
   • Target 16.b Promote and enforce non-discriminatory laws and policies for sustainable development.
   • Target 16.7 Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels.

• Academic/NGO research
• Government laws and regulations
• Hate Crimes Reports
• Local authority data
• MICS
• Monitoring reports of NHRIs
• National census
• National surveys of children
• Police reports
• SDG data

1. United Nations Office of High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) (2012). Human Rights Indicators: A Guide to Measurement and Implementation (HR/PUB/12/5), (p. 81). Retrieved from http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/Human_rights_indicators_en.pdf
2. Abramson, B. (2008). Article 2: The right to non-discrimination (p.4, 40-42). In A. Alen, J. Vande Lanotte, E. Verhellen, F. Ang, E. Berghmans, & M. Verheyde (Eds.), A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Leiden, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
3. Human Rights Committee. (1989). General Comment No.18: Non-discrimination (HRI/GEN/1/Rev.9), (para. 7-8). Retrieved from http://ccprcentre.org/page/view/general_comments/27792
4. Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. (2016). General Comment No.4: Right to Inclusive Education (CRPD/C/GC/4), (para 40(a)). Retrieved from https://www.refworld.org/docid/57c977e34.html
5. Besson, S. & Kleber, E. (2019). The Right to Non-discrimination. In J. Tobin (ed), The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. London, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

• First Nations Child & Family Caring Society. (2019). Indigenous Knowledge Portal. Available from https://fncaringsociety.com/ikp
• Fundamental Rights Agency, European Union Agency For Fundamental Rights. (2010). Developing indicators for the protection, respect and promotion of the rights of the child in the European Union (Conference Edition). Retrieved from https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2012/developing-indicators-protection-respect-and-promotion-rights-child-european-union
• United Nations General Assembly. (2015). Sustainable Development Goals. Retrieved from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?menu=1300
• United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). (2007). Implementation handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Fully rev. 3rd ed.). Geneva, Switzerland: UNICEF.
• United Nations Office of High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) (2012). Human Rights Indicators: A Guide to Measurement and Implementation (HR/PUB/12/5). Retrieved from http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/Human_rights_indicators_en.pdf

Direct discrimination
Direct discrimination occurs when a child is treated worse than another person or other people because:

• they have a protected characteristic (such a religion, race or disability)
• they are thought to have that protected characteristic (known as discrimination by perception)
• they are connected to someone with that protected characteristic (known as discrimination by association) (UN Economic and Social Council, 2009)

Indirect discrimination
Indirect discrimination arises when a child is treated in the same way as someone else, but this treatment has a negative effect on them because of a protected characteristic such as disability, sex, ethnic status or religion. An example of indirect discrimination would be to ban children from adopting certain hairstyles in school, when the prohibition would only effectively apply to one particular racial group (UN Economic and Social Council, 2009).

Positive discrimination
“Discrimination on the basis of certain attributes such as age, sex, race or disability is not always against the law. The term ‘positive discrimination’ is sometimes used to refer to ‘positive measures’ or ‘affirmative action’. Such measures or action aim to foster greater equality by supporting children who face, or have faced, entrenched discrimination so they can have similar access to opportunities as others in the community” (Australian Human Rights Commission, n.d.).

Prohibited grounds
Prohibition of discrimination means that you cannot be treated worse than other people simply because of who you are. The term ‘grounds’ refers to the criteria or circumstances against which it is prohibited to discriminate in Article 2 of the Convention. They are race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status. The inclusion of “other status” indicates that this list is not exhaustive and other grounds may be incorporated in this category (UN Economic and Social Council, 2009).