On World Children’s Day, the Chair of the Covid-19 Inquiry released recommendations from Module 2 – and one of her 19 key findings is a call for the Government to introduce legislation to place Child Rights Impact Assessments (CRIAs) on a statutory footing in England.
As a core participant to the Inquiry, alongside Save the Children UK, the Children's Rights Alliance for England, part of Just for Kids Law, has consistently highlighted how children’s rights were side-lined during the pandemic – with devastating and lasting effects. This recommendation marks a vital recognition of that failure and a turning point for how government must approach decision-making that affects children.
We’ve been calling for exactly this change through our work on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, alongside Baroness Lister, UNICEF UK, and the NSPCC. Baroness Lister's amendment to introduce statutory CRIAs provides the Government with a clear opportunity to implement this recommendation and show real leadership on children’s rights.
We would like to see the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child fully and directly incorporated into UK law to transform the way in which children’s rights are respected, protected and fulfilled. An important, but straightforward, first step towards this ultimate goal would be to ensure that CRIAs are a statutory requirement when the government is making a policy or budgetary decision that impacts on children.
Read more about Child Rights Impact Assessments (CRIAs) here
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