States Parties shall protect the child against all other forms of exploitation prejudicial to any aspects of the child’s welfare.
-UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
Overview of Article 36
Children should be protected from any activity that takes advantage of them or could harm their welfare and development. Linked to a number of articles[1], Articles 36 of CRC provide for all encompassing fail-safe preventive and protective safeguards against all forms of exploitation and slavery-like conditions everywhere that are not covered by other articles of the Convention.
Initially designed as a part of one composite article combining commercial sexual exploitation of children (Article 34) and abduction of, sale of, traffic in children (Article 35) to cover sexual and other related forms of exploitation [1], drafters of the Convention ended up in designing a wider and a fail-safe protection for children exploitation. Article 36 was introduced to ensure that the “social” exploitation of children was recognized, along with their sexual and economic exploitation, though examples of what was meant by social exploitation were not provided [2].
With increasingly globalised criminal activities and introduction of new technologies, new forms of exploitation are discovered every day in addition to traditional forms of trafficking (within and between countries) and sale of children for sexual purposes and forced marriage. Children are exposed to forms of exploitation which are “not accompanied by physical force or restraint but which are nonetheless psychologically intrusive, exploitive and traumatic” [3].
Article 36 obliges States to protect children from all other forms of exploitation. Read together with other relevant articles in CRC, it provides an additional layer of protection from new or previously unknown or undefined forms of child exploitation.
The Committee has not yet raised any specific concerns under this article. Forms of exploitation not addressed under other articles include the exploitation of gifted children, children used in criminal activities, the exploitation of children in political activities (for example in violent demonstrations), the exploitation of children by the media, through information and communication technologies and the exploitation of children by researchers or for the purposes of medical or scientific experimentation [2].
[1] Different forms of exploitation are defined in Article 19 (protection from all forms of violence), Article 32 (exploitation of child labour), Article 33 (drug trafficking), Article 34 (sexual exploitation) and Article 35 (abduction of, sale of, traffic in children). Different settings where exploitation might happen are defined in Article 11 (illicit transfer and non-return of children abroad), Article 20 (children deprived of family environment), Article 21 (adoption), Article 22 (right to seek asylum), Article 39 (armed conflict).
Core attributes of Article 36
The core attributes of Article 36 are:
- Monitoring and identification of all other forms of exploitation prejudicial to any aspects of the child’s welfare
- Prevention and protection from all other forms of exploitation prejudicial to any aspects of the child’s welfare
Each of these attributes can be measured in terms of structural or process 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. 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 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 16.2 End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children.
Potential sources of data for users of the indicators sets
- Court case statistics
- Household surveys
- Human rights violations reports of CSOs
- Ministry of Justice
- Ministry of Interior
- National vital registration systems
- Primary research by National Human Rights Institutions for Children
References used for the overview
- Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. (2007). Legislative History of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. (Vol. 2, pp. 723-737). New York and Geneva: United Nations. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/LegislativeHistorycrc2en.pdf
- United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). (2007). Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Fully Revised 3rd Ed., pp. 543-544). Geneva, Switzerland: UNICEF.
- United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. (2011). General Comment No. 13: The right of the child to freedom from all forms of violence (CRC/C/GC/13), (para. 25). Retrieved from the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights website https://www.refworld.org/docid/4e6da4922.html
References used to create indicators
- Council of Europe. (2018). Guidelines to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of the child in the digital environment. Retrieved from https://rm.coe.int/guidelines-to-respect-protect-and-fulfil-the-rights-of-the-child-in-th/16808d881a
- UNICEF. (2007). Implementation handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Fully rev. 3rd ed.). New York: UNICEF.
- UNICEF. (n.d.). Mapping the Global Goals for Sustainable Development and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/media/60231/file
- United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights. (n.d.). The Universal Human Rights Index (UHRI). Retrieved from https://uhri.ohchr.org/en
Glossary/key words
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