WIREDGOV

New legal duties on all the Ministers of the Welsh Government to consider the rights of children when exercising any of their functions, including making spending decisions, creating policies or changing the law, came into force yesterday 

In 2012 Wales became the only nation in the UK and one of the few countries in the world to adopt the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) when Assembly Members unanimously voted for the ground-breaking Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011.

The Convention is a human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children under the age of 18. Under the treaty children are considered a vulnerable group who need additional rights to ensure they are protected and can participate in matters that affect them.

Since the vote in 2012, Welsh Ministers only had to consider the UNCRC when developing new policies or legislation and/or amending existing ones. With the advent of the additional new legal duties coming in to force, Welsh Ministers now have to go even further and consider the rights of children when exercising any of their functions, from deciding budgets, to developing policy and giving guidance to public bodies.

The Welsh Government has put in place a Children’s Rights Scheme to reflect these new arrangements and ensure that they comply with the duty set out in law.

Communities and Tackling Poverty Minister Jeff Cuthbert said:

“Wales can be proud that we have placed the rights of children and young people into law.  Whenever a Welsh Government Minister exercises any of their functions, which includes creating a policy or changing the law, we now have a legal duty to consider how our actions impact on the rights of children and young people.

“This may seem like a complex legalistic change, but has at its heart a move to provide children and young people with an increased awareness of their rights and the support we as a society can provide them.”

Examples of how the Children’s Rights Measure has worked in the last two years include the Welsh Government working to develop new statutory guidance on the safety of walked routes to school. Another example of its direct impact was seen in the last legislative stages of the ground-breaking Human Transplantation (Wales) Act 2013 where amendments were made in order to give greater effect to the UNCRC, allowing competent children to be afforded the choice of appointing a representative to express consent to organ donation.

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