Today is World Children’s Day, marking the anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959) and the 31st anniversary of the adoption of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is a day when we promote and celebrate child rights, while working to build a better world for children.
Against the challenging backdrop of the ongoing global pandemic, with some countries allowing physical prison visits for children and others barring them entry, the past several months have been a strategic period for the rights of children with parents in prison. The EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child is currently being drafted, and COPE has been working hard to help ensure that children with imprisoned parents are included in the new Strategy. COPE’s participation in the 13th European Forum on the Rights of the Child at the end of September helped keep the rights and specific needs of this group of children visible.
COPE has also been focusing on embedding child rights with respect to judicial training and the need to account for children impacted by adult sentencing processes and pre-trial remand measures when a parent is in conflict with the law, building off of our sentencing toolkit published last year, Keeping children in mind: Moving from ‘child-blind’ to child-friendly justice during a parent’s criminal sentencing. It is critical to work to foster a paradigm shift and systemic change whereby a system of “child checks” is put in place in all countries. Embedding such practices and protocols enables the existence, well-being and available caregiving support for children to be ascertained as part of adult criminal sentencing processes and remand procedures for all parents in conflict with the law. In this way, these children’s rights and needs remain front and centre throughout all criminal justice processes. This is preventive action: more children receive better protection, children do not ‘fall between the cracks’. And following on the topic of child-friendly justice, COPE contributed to a DG Justice consultation process to inform the upcoming EU European Judicial Training Strategy 2021-2024 in an effort to strengthen the rights of children with imprisoned parents during adult criminal sentencing processes. These efforts to promote, implement and embed child rights are all underpinned by Council of Europe Recommendation CM/Rec (2018)5 on children with imprisoned parents.
And to help build a better world for children impacted by a parent’s imprisonment and protect their rights, today is the final day of COPE’s crowdfunding campaign to reduce bullying and discrimination in these children’s lives. Some 2.1 million children in Council of Europe countries are separated from a parent in prison. Please pitch in!