Article 18: Parental responsibility

States Parties shall use their best efforts to ensure recognition of the principle that both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of the child. Parents or, as the case may be, legal guardians, have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child. The best interests of the child will be their basic concern.
For the purpose of guaranteeing and promoting the rights set forth in the present Convention, States Parties shall render appropriate assistance to parents and legal guardians in the performance of their child-rearing responsibilities and shall ensure the development of institutions, facilities and services for the care of children.
States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that children of working parents have the right to benefit from child-care services and facilities for which they are eligible.

-UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Overview of Article 18

Article 18 concerns parents and other primary caregivers’ equal responsibilities for the upbringing and the development of their children and the State role in assisting them in the performing of their primary responsibility. Article 18 does not juxtapose parents’ rights to children’s rights, but it rather asserts ‘parents and other primary caregivers’ primacy in relation to the State, not the child, and the article is about parental responsibilities rather than rights. In doing so, the “CRC imposes states parties the obligation to respect the parent’s role, by refraining from arbitrary interferences in the exercise of the parental responsibility and the obligation to fulfil, by taking all appropriate legislative and administrative measures to nurture parental resources – both in terms of personal skills and availability of support facilities […] [1, 2]. In this framework, parents enjoy a degree of discretion as holders of what had been defined as limited [3] and functional [4] rights” [5]. The limitations of these rights are of a twofold nature. Firstly, they are limited by the evolving capacity of the child; by the development of the child’s maturity, they will be automatically restricted or reshaped in their content and scope (Article 5). Secondly, the parents’ right, included the rights of other primary caregivers, should be exercised in the full respect of the best interest of the child and their enjoyment of the full range of rights included in the CRC [5].

Article 18 also reiterates states parties’ obligation to provide appropriate assistance to parents in the performance of their child-rearing responsibility (Article 18(2)). The combined reading of Article 18(2) and Article 3(2) and (3) bestow on states parties the responsibility to render appropriate assistance to parents in the performance of their child-rearing responsibility, namely through the creation of ‘institutions, facilities and services for the care of children” and monitoring of the latter’s compliance with the quality standards. Both provisions are therefore closely intertwined, even though Article 3(3) does not exclusively refer to institutions dedicated to child-rearing, but also to those dedicated to child protection more generally [6, 7]”[5].

Core attributes of Article 18

The core attributes of Article 18 are:

Common primary responsibilities for the upbringing under the primary consideration of the child best interest (Article 18(1))
State’s appropriate assistance to parents
Development of institutions, facilities, and services for the care of children
Appropriate measures for the care of children of working parents (Article 18(3))

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 could be specific 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.

What did children say?

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

Relevant provisions within the SDGs

Goal 5 Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
- Target 5.4: Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate.
  - SDG indicator 5.4.1 Proportion of time spent on unpaid domestic and care work, by sex, age and location.

Potential sources of data for users of the indicators sets

Early childhood education and care data
National constitution and legislation
National surveys and census data
Primary research by National Human Rights Institutions for Children
Primary research by universities
Primary research by NGOs
UNICEF MICS data

References used for the overview

United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. (2013). General Comment No.17 (2013) on the right of the child to rest, leisure, play, recreational activities, cultural life and the arts (CRC/C/GC/17), (para. 56). Retrieved from https://www.refworld.org/docid/51ef9bcc4.html
United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. (2005). CRC General Comment No.7 (2005), Implementing child rights in early childhood (CRC/C/GC/7), (para. 15) Retrieved from https://www.refworld.org/docid/460bc5a62.html
Archard, D. (2015), Children: Rights and Childhood (3rd ed. pp.149-152). Abingdon, United Kingdom and New York, United States of America: Routledge.
Reynaert, D., Bouverne-de-Bie, M. & Vandevelde, S. (2009). A review of children’s rights literature since the adoption of the Unites Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Childhood, 16(4), p.518.
Ruggiero, R., Volonakis, D. & Hanson, K., (2017). The inclusion of ‘third parties’: the status of parenthood in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In E. Brems, E. Desmet, W. Vandenhole (eds.) Children’s Rights Law in the Global Human Rights Landscape (1st ed., pp. 71-75). Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge.
Freeman, M. (2007). Article 3: The best interest of the child. 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 (pp.71-72). Leiden, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Detrick, S., (1999). A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (p.29). Leiden, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.

References used to create indicators

Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland (CELCIS) et al. (2012). Moving Forward: Implementing the ‘Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children’. Attributes Article 18. Scotland, United Kingdom: Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland. Retrieved from https://www.relaf.org/materiales/Moving-forward-implementing-the-guidelines-ENG.pdf
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
National Commission on the Rights of the Child. (2016). Belgian National Child Rights Indicators, Make Them Count. Retrieved from https://ncrk-cnde.be/en/projects/nouvelle-traduction-20-indicateurs-nationaux-droits-de-l-enfant/
The Child Protection Initiative, Save the Children. (2014). Child Protection Outcome Indicators. Retrieved from https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/child-protection-outcome-indicators
United Nations General Assembly. (2015). Sustainable Development Goals. SGD indictor: Goal 5: Target 5.4 and Indicator 5.4.1. Retrieved from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata?Text=family&Goal=&Target=
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 https://www.ohchr.org/documents/publications/human_rights_indicators_en.pdf

Glossary/key words

Evolving capacity:
“Evolving capacities is defined as an enabling principle that addresses the process of maturation and learning through which children progressively acquire competencies, understanding and increasing levels of agency to take responsibility and exercise their rights” (UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2005). Article 5 of the Convention requires that parental direction and guidance be provided in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child, seeing direction and guidance transform with appreciation for this increased ability for decision making in their lives.

Similarly, minimum legal age limits should be consistent with the right to protection, the best interests principle and respect for the evolving capacities of adolescents. This includes provisions for the right to be heard, challenge rights violations and seek redress as they exercise agency and progressively in their own protection (UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2016).

Family:
“The preamble to the Convention refers to the family as “the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children” (UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2005). The Committee recognizes that “family” here refers to a variety of arrangements that can provide for young children’s care, nurturance and development, including the nuclear family, the extended family, and other traditional and modern community-based arrangements, provided these are consistent with children’s rights and best interests” (UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2005). (GC7 para 15)

Parental responsibility:
“States Parties are required to respect that parents or, as the case may be, legal guardians, have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child. In addition, States Parties are required to respect that parent(s) or others responsible for the child have the primary responsibility to secure, with their abilities and financial capacities, the conditions of living necessary for the child’s development” (UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti, 2000).

Parenting support:
“Parenting support refers to a range of information, support, education, training, counselling and other measures or services that focus on influencing how parents understand and carry out their parenting role. A common goal is to achieve better outcomes for children and young people (and in some instances families as a whole) by providing services that offer information, support and even retraining for parents” (Daly, 2011;2012).

Parents:
“A child’s biological or adoptive parent. The term ‘Parent’ is used throughout the Ethical Guidance sub-sections to refer to parents, carers, guardians and those in parent substitute roles” (UNICEF Office of Research, 2013).

Article 18 Indicator Tables