State of Children's Rights

Phase 1

Children in Wales, with funding from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) facilitated a series of activities for NGOs in Wales to help identify the key priorities for children’s rights and inform our initial report.  We ran two workshop events and received over 70 pieces of written evidence to complement existing evidence gathered.  We submitted our report to the UN ‘Wales Civil Society Report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child to inform their List of Issues prior to Reporting’ in December 2020.

Phase 2

After considering our report and other evidence received, the UN Committee published their List of Issues report in February 2021 for response by the UK and devolved governments.   The UK government, on behalf of all nations, submitted their report in June 2022.   As well as contributing to this combined report, the Welsh Government also submitted a more detailed report.  Children in Wales through the Wales UNCRC Monitoring Group had an opportunity to separately engage UK and Welsh Government officials and provide comment to both reports prior to submission.

Phase 3

Building upon our initial report and with additional evidence with over 100+ contributions, the State of Children’s Rights in Wales report was produced and submitted to the UN in December 2022 and formally launched though a webinar in February 2023.  This ‘alternative county report’ included 134 Recommendations across 38 thematic policy areas. Children in Wales through the Wales UNCRC Monitoring Group attended the Pre-Session Hearing in Geneva in February 2023,  which provided an opportunity to present our recommendations and discuss our findings with the UN Committee.  We also collaborated with other child rights alliances in the other three nations.

Phase 4

Children in Wales through the Wales UNCRC Monitoring Group also attended the examination of the UK and devolved governments in May 2023, which culminated in a set of recommendations (Concluding Observations) for governments to implement.

Resources