Date: 19th June 2019
Category: Civil Rights and Freedoms, Access to appropriate information

Members of Global Kids Online (GKO), an international research project supporting rigorous cross-national evidence generation on children’s internet use, gathered at UNICEF Innocenti this week.

Date: 18th June 2019
Category: General measures of implementation, Incorporation, Civil Rights and Freedoms

The Scottish Government has announced a new National Taskforce to lead on human rights in Scotland. 

Date: 14th June 2019
Category: Disability, Basic Health and Welfare, Civil Rights and Freedoms

Amnesty International has launched Rise Up which is a fully funded, one-year course designed to equip young people who are passionate about Human Rights with the skills, knowledge and confidence they need to make positive change happen in their communities.

Date: 14th June 2019
Category: General measures of implementation, Disability, Basic Health and Welfare, Civil Rights and Freedoms, Education, Leisure and Cultural Activities, Reporting to and monitoring the UNCRC

The 2018 DGD outcome report is adopted! We are delighted to announce that the CRC Committee has adopted the 2018 DGD outcome report on Protecting and Empowering Children as Human Rights Defenders!

Date: 14th June 2019
Category: Civil Rights and Freedoms

The Scottish Sentencing Council is launching a public consultation on its second draft sentencing guideline, which sets out the sentencing process for all offences. This draft guideline describes the steps taken by judges when making sentencing decisions, and the various factors which may be taken into account. The Council is keen to hear from all of those with an interest in its work. The consultation is open until 6 September 2019. Further information about the consultation, along with the consultation documents and online response form, can be found here 

Date: 14th June 2019
Category: Disability, Basic Health and Welfare, Civil Rights and Freedoms, Education, Leisure and Cultural Activities

Scottish Children's Reporter Association (SCRA) has launched a new suite of materials to provide information and support to children and young people on how to complain if they wish to.

Date: 6th June 2019
Category: General measures of implementation

A special edition of the International Journal of Human Rights has been published, guest-edited by Together staff with Dr Andressa Gadda and Professor Kay Tisdall.  The special edition, Human Rights Monitoring and Implementation, aims to enhance the critical evidence and strategic approach to implementing human rights in practice, outlining efforts in ensuring children can exercise their UNCRC rights in their day-to-day lives.

Date: 6th June 2019
Category:

The Scottish Human Rights Commission is developing its Strategic Plan for 2020 – 2024. To help set their priorities and improve how they work, they would like to hear from people and organisations from across Scotland. 

Date: 6th June 2019
Category: Freedom of association and peaceful assembly

For the past several months, dozens of partners, including Child Rights Connect have been involved in defining sector ‘Standards for Child Campaigning’. The Standards aim to define how civil society should best enable child led / centered civic action and campaigning and to shift practices away from “fitting children’s participation into adult led organization’s priorities and activities” to an approach where “adult led organizations support children’s priorities”.  

Date: 5th June 2019
Category: Family Environment and Alternative Care, Education, Leisure and Cultural Activities, Disability, Basic Health and Welfare

On behalf of the Scottish Government, CELCIS (the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland) commissioned Blake Stevenson to evaluate the Realigning Children's Services (RCS) programme.

Date: 5th June 2019
Category: Civil Rights and Freedoms, Education, Leisure and Cultural Activities, Disability, Basic Health and Welfare

In a project conducted by the Human Rights Clinic at University of Edinburgh in partnership with Together, LLM students explored the role of CRWIA (Children’s Rights and Well-being Impact Assessment) in improving rights-based decision-making. Two groups of students explored various international examples of impact assessments and drew learning to analyse the effectiveness of CRWIA in Scotland.

Date: 5th June 2019
Category: Disability, Basic Health and Welfare, Civil Rights and Freedoms, UN Convention Against Torture (CAT), Other human rights treaties and mechanisms

The mosquito device has been branded as a ‘successful’ deterrent for anti-social behaviour. It is used to deter loitering of young people by emitting sound at high frequency, so it can be heard mostly by younger people. Mosquito  devices have been overtly condemned by the UN, Council of Europe and the Children’s Commissioner all requesting that they be banned, yet on 30th May 2019 another device has been discovered at Edinburgh’s Waverley Mall.

Date: 5th June 2019
Category: Civil Rights and Freedoms, General measures of implementation, Other human rights treaties and mechanisms, Reporting to and monitoring the UNCRC, Funding

A new report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) explores the impact on equality and human rights of the UK government proposal of replacing EU Structural Funds with a ‘UK Shared Prosperity Fund’ when we leave the EU.

Date: 5th June 2019
Category: Education, Leisure and Cultural Activities, Civil Rights and Freedoms, Reporting to and monitoring the UNCRC

Together, along with Child Rights Connect, presented a joint submission with the Centre for Human Rights and Citizenship Education of the Dublin City University Institute of Education and  the Centre for Children’s Rights at Queen’s University Belfast on the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s concept note for a General Comment on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment.

Date: 5th June 2019
Category: Civil Rights and Freedoms, Disability, Basic Health and Welfare, Education, Leisure and Cultural Activities, Family Environment and Alternative Care

The Scottish Government has published a report on progress and setting out actions agreed at the Cabinet meeting with children and young people in March 2018.

Date: 4th June 2019
Category: Protection from abuse or neglect, Family Environment and Alternative Care

On Tuesday 28th May, MSPs overwhelmingly backed in principle a bill to give children equal protection from assault. MSPs voted by 80 to 29 in favour of the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill, with only the Conservatives voting against, after its first stage debate.

Date: 4th June 2019
Category: Education, Leisure and Cultural Activities

This report investigates the improvement of language ability during the primary school years and identifies factors which appear to help and hinder improvement over this period.

Date: 4th June 2019
Category: Disability, Basic Health and Welfare

The UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights released his final report from his visit to the UK late last year. UN Special Rapporteur, Phillip Alston, details just how austerity measures have negatively affected society in the UK and that "the bottom line is that much of the glue that has held British society together since the Second World War has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos."

Date: 4th June 2019
Category: Civil Rights and Freedoms

On Friday, 14th June, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, will present the UN Human Rights Report 2018 OHCHR's latest yearly report on its human rights work around the world. Page 9 of the report talks about child human rights defenders advising the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Date: 4th June 2019
Category: Civil Rights and Freedoms, General measures of implementation

In an effort to keep mainstreaming child rights in the work of the Special Rapporteur, Child Rights Connect and its members worked jointly on a submission highlighting some of the main challenges faced by children human rights defenders to combat impunity.