Welcome to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child section of the Children in Wales website. One of Children in Wales’ aims is to ensure that the UN Convention becomes a reality in Wales, and the UN Convention section of this site provides details of each Article of the Convention.
Read the Articles of the Convention:-
Articles 1 - 10Articles 11 - 20Articles 21 - 30Articles 31 - 42
About the Convention
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was drawn up by member states of the UN in November 1989 and ratified by the UK in December 1991. It contains 54 articles, 41 about rights of children and 13 about its implementation, and is intended to ensure that universal rights of children areupheld throughout the world. In ratifying the treaty the UK Government entered reservations to the Convention, which remain in force today. These include reservations to the articles on juvenile justice (Article 37) and asylum and immigration (Article 22). The Convention came into force in the UK in January 1992.
The UN Convention in Wales
The Welsh Assembly Government formally adopted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to provide a foundation of principle for dealings with children in a plenary debate on 14 January 2004.
Monitoring the Convention
Governments report on their implementation of the Convention to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child every five years. The UK Government reported in 1994 , 1999 and 2007. Following the government reports the international treaty monitoring body for the Convention on the Rights of the Child issues its own reports on each Government’s progress. Reports on the UK Government’s progress were issued in 1995 and 2002.
In addition to the reports made by governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) also compile reports to show how they believe the Convention has been implemented in their country. Children in Wales is represented on the UNCRC Monitoring Group which works together to ensure the effective co-ordination of the monitoring of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in Wales. More information about this is available on the Monitoring the UN Convention page and the Children's Rights Representation page of this website.
Translation of the Convention into Welsh
The UNICEF UK committee produces a summary version of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and have given permission for this to be translated into Welsh. The Translation has been carried out by CEWC Cymru who have permitted us to reproduce the text on the UN Convention Welsh pages of this site.
How to Find Out More
More information about all our work relating to Children's Rights is available in the Children's Rights pages of the Work Areas section of this website, and details of training provided by Children in Wales on Children's Rights is available in the Training section.
Children in Wales has produced a series of briefings which provide additional information about the UNCRC and the monitoring process. These can be downloaded from our Publications to Download page.
Links to further websites relating to Children's Rights are available in our Links section.