In 1989, world leaders made a historic commitment to the world’s children by adopting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child – an international agreement on childhood. It’s become the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history and has helped transform children’s lives around the world.

1. The 42 rights of a child

2. What is the Convention on
the Rights of the Child?
The Convention on the Rights of
the Child is the most rapidly and
widely ratified international
human rights treaty in history.
The Convention changed the way
children are viewed and treated –
as human beings with a distinct set
of rights instead of as passive
objects of care and charity.
The unprecedented acceptance of
the Convention clearly shows a full
global commitment to advancing
children's rights.
"Rights" are things every child
under 18 should have. All children
have the same rights. These rights
are listed in the UN Convention
on the Rights of the Child that
was signed on the 20th of
November 1989. 193 countries
agreed to these rights while
Lebanon signed in 1990. The
convention includes 54 articles
and 2 optional protocols

3. ARTICLE 1
Be recognised
A child is recognised as a person
under the age of 18, unless
national laws recognise an earlier
age of majority.

4. Non-discrimination. No matter if a child is rich or
poor, male or female, disabled or of any race or
sexuality, children shouldn't be treated unfairly.
ARTICLE 2
Non-discrimination

5. ARTICLE 3
Adequate care
Parents, organisations and state
parties should always have the best
interests of the child as a primary
consideration.

6. Children's rights should be respected, protected, and
fulfilled, whether we're talking government policies
and laws, or even social and health services and, of
course, within the home.
ARTICLE 4
Implementation of these rights

7. Parental guidance. Government
should allow parents to direct and
guide their children in a manner that
helps them understand their own
rights, but without pushing them into
actions or have consequences they're
too young to understand. Without
taking away choice from parents,
provide assistance to families to help
them fulfill their role as a nurturer.
ARTICLE 5

8. ARTICLE 6
Life
Every child has the inherent right to
life, and the State has an obligation
to ensure the child’s survival and
development.

9. 5. Registration, name, and nationality. Children have a
right to have an official record of who they are, an
official name, belong to a country, and to know (as
much as possible) and be cared for by their parents.
ARTICLE 7

10. ARTICLE 8
Identity protection
The State has an obligation to protect
and, if necessary, re-establish basic
aspects of the child’s identity. This
includes name, nationality and family
ties.

11. The child has a right to live with his or her parents unless this is deemed
incompatible with the child’s best interests. The child
also has the right to maintain contact with both parents
if separated from one or both.
Children and their parents have
the right to leave any country and
to enter their own for purposes of
reunion or the maintenance of
the child-parent relationship.
ARTICLE 9
Live with their parents
ARTICLE 10
Family reunification

12. ARTICLE 11
Freedom from kidnapping
The State has an obligation to
prevent and remedy the
kidnapping or retention abroad
of children by a parent or third
party.
ARTICLE 12
Freedom of opinion
The child has the right to
express his or her opinion freely
and to have that opinion taken
into account in any matter or
procedure affecting the child.

13. ARTICLE 13
Freedom of expression
The child has the right to express his or her views,
obtain information and make ideas or information
known, regardless of frontiers.

14. ARTICLE 14
Freedom of thought
The State shall respect the
child’s right to freedom of
thought, conscience and
religion, subject to
appropriate parental
guidance.

15. ARTICLE 15
Freedom of association
Children have a right to meet
with others, and to join or
form associations.
ARTICLE 16
Protection of privacy
Children have the right to
protection from interference
with their privacy, family,
home and correspondence,
and to protection from libel
or slander.

16. ARTICLE 17
Access information
The State shall ensure the accessibility to children of
information and material from a diversity of sources,
and it shall encourage the mass media to disseminate
information that is of social and cultural benefit to
the child, and take steps to protect him or her from
harmful materials.

17. ARTICLE 18
Be raised by their parents
Parents have joint primary
responsibility for raising
the child, and the State
shall support them in this.
The State shall provide
parents with appropriate
child-rearing assistance.

18. ARTICLE 19
Freedom from abuse
The State shall protect the
child from all forms of
maltreatment by parents or
others responsible for the
child’s care and shall establish
appropriate social programmes
for the prevention of abuse
and the treatment of victims.

19. ARTICLE 20
Alternative care
The State is obliged to provide
special protection for a child
deprived of the family
environment and to ensure that
appropriate alternative family
care or institutional placement is
available in such cases. Efforts to
meet this obligation shall pay due
regard to the child’s cultural
background.
An estimated 1.5 million children
in the Council of Europe member
States live in some form of
alternative care.
Children can be placed with relatives, in foster care or
other family-like settings, or in residential institutions.

20. ARTICLE 21
Safe adoption
In countries where adoption in
recognised and/or allowed, it
shall be carried out only in the
best interests of the child, and
then only with the authorisation
of competent authorities and
safeguards for the child.

21. ARTICLE 22
Refugee protection
Special protection shall be
granted to a refugee child or to a
child seeking refugee status. It is
the State’s obligation to
cooperate with competent
organisations that provide such
protection and assistance.

22. ARTICLE 23
Special disability care
A disabled child has the right to
special care, education and training to
help him or her enjoy a full and
decent life in dignity and achieve the
greatest degree of self-reliance and
social integration possible.

23. ARTICLE 24
Health services
The child has a right to the
highest standard of health and
medical care attainable. States
shall place special emphasis on
the reduction of infant and child
mortality and on the provision of
primary and preventive
healthcare and of public health
education.

24. ARTICLE 25
Review of placement
A child who is placed by the State for reasons of
care, protection or treatment is entitled to have that
placement evaluated regularly.
ARTICLE 26
Social security
The child has the right to
benefit from social security,
including social insurance.

25. ARTICLE 27
A standard of living
Every child has the right to a
standard of living adequate
for his or her physical,
mental, spiritual, moral and
social development.

26. ARTICLE 28
An education
The child has a right to education, and the State’s
duty is to ensure that primary education is free and
compulsory.

27. ARTICLE 29
Personal development
Education shall aim at developing the
child’s personality, talents and mental
and physical abilities to the fullest
extent.
ARTICLE 30
Their own culture
Children of minority communities and
indigenous populations have the right to
enjoy their own culture and to practise
their own religion and language.

28. ARTICLE 31
Leisure and play
The child has the right to leisure,
play and participation in cultural and
artistic activities.

29. ARTICLE 32
Freedom from child labour
The child has the right to be protected from work
that threatens his or her health, education or
development. The State shall set minimum ages for
employment and shall regulate working conditions.

30. ARTICLE 33
Protection from drug abuse
Children have the right to protection from the use of narcotic and
psychotropic drugs, and from being involved in their production or
distribution.

31. ARTICLE 34
Freedom from sexual exploitation
The State shall protect children from
sexual exploitation and abuse,
including prostitution and
involvement in pornography.

32. ARTICLE 35
Freedom from human trafficking
It is the State’s obligation to make
every effort to prevent the sale,
trafficking and abduction of children.
ARTICLE 36
Freedom from exploitation
The child has the right to protection from all forms of
exploitation prejudicial to any aspects of the child’s
welfare not covered in articles 32–35.

33. ARTICLE 37
Freedom from torture
No child shall be subjected to torture, cruel treatment or
punishment, unlawful arrest or deprivation of liberty.
Both capital punishment and life imprisonment without
the possibility for release are prohibited for offences
committed by persons below age 18.

34. ARTICLE 38
Protection from conflict
States shall take all feasible measures to ensure that
children under 15 years of age have no direct part in
hostilities. No child below 15 shall be recruited into
the armed forces.
ARTICLE 39
Rehabilitative care
The State has an obligation to ensure that child victims
of armed conflicts, torture, maltreatment or exploitation
receive appropriate treatment for their recovery and
social reintegration.

35. ARTICLE 40
Juvenile justice
A child in conflict with the law has
the right to treatment that
promotes the child’s sense of
dignity and worth, takes the
child’s age into account and aims
at his or her defence,
ARTICLE 41
Relevant higher national standards
If a country has laws and standards
that go further than the present
Convention, then the country must
keep these laws.
ARTICLE 42
Knowledge of these rights
Governments must actively work
to make sure children and adults
know about the Convention.

36. ARTICLE 43 - 54
Input from adults and governments
Articles 43 - 54 are about how
adults and governments must work
together to make sure all children
can enjoy all their rights.

38. What is included
The Convention sets out the rights of children, aged zero to 18 years,
and the responsibilities of governments to ensure those rights.
Child rights are based on what a child needs to survive, grow,
participate and meet their potential. They apply equally to every child,
regardless of ethnicity, gender or religion.
The Convention includes the responsibilities of parents, governments
and children themselves to ensure the rights of children are met.