The Council of Europe Recommendation CM/ Rec(2018)5 is landmark instrument that addresses the needs of children with imprisoned parents through fifty-six guidelines for good practice. As part of COPE’s 2020 ‘Not my crime, still my sentence’ campaign, COPE members shared a selection of these guidelines with children who were invited to choose one that they found to be the most meaningful or the most important to them. They were asked to draw or paint a visual representation of the article they chose, and then to write one or two sentences explaining why they chose the article. The responses have been gathered in this document, which seeks to amplify children’s own articulations of their needs and assertions of their rights.
The phrasing from of the articles from the Recommendation come from It’s Time to Act, a child-friendly version of Recommendation CM/Rec(2018)5 produced by COPE.