The particular circumstances of children in Northern Ireland

Goretti Horgan
Research Fellow, School of Policy Studies, University of Ulster

November 2005

This research was undertaken at the request of the Children and Young People’s Sector Group for the Bill of Rights, who work for maximum protections for children and young people in the Northern Ireland Bill of Rights. The group has the support of over 180 community groups and organisations across communities and the political spectrum. The research was funded by Save the Children and the Children’s Law Centre.




Children and young people make up almost a quarter of the population of
Northern Ireland and yet we have not always given their interests and needs the priority they deserve. But this is changing. Never before has there been such a groundswell of support for securing the rights and meeting the needs of children and young people in Northern Ireland and the momentum is gathering.

Minister John Spellar, Foreword to draft Children’s Strategy, 2004

Summary

This paper will argue that the particular circumstances of children and young people in Northern Ireland are such that the Bill of Rights must address the rights of children specifically and in detail.
The particular circumstances of children in Northern Ireland include:
1. The legacy of the conflict;
2. Segregation in housing, education, health and leisure services;
3. High levels of child poverty;
4. Low levels of family support services;
5. Poor provision of services for young people with additional needs
6. The interaction between poverty, segregation and conflict.


After the introduction, this paper is divided into two broad parts that link to some of the provisions of the UNCRC. The first part is about children’s rights to care, protection and freedom of expression. The second part is about the importance of socio-economic rights for children and young people in Northern Ireland.



Introduction

There is widespread community support for specific rights for children and young people to be included in the Bill of Rights. In October 2001, RES conducted a survey on behalf of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission in which 78% of Catholics and 67% of Protestants indicated their support for such rights. Most importantly of all, the NIHRC's consultation with children and young people revealed almost unanimous support for the provision of specific rights for children and young people.

As the draft Children’s Strategy points out, there is no single experience of childhood in Northern Ireland. For many children, growing up in Northern Ireland is little different to growing up in Finglas or Finchley. But for those children who live in poor families in the most disadvantaged parts of Northern Ireland, there are very particular circumstances which need to be acknowledged and addressed.
The Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations on Children and Armed Conflict, Mr Olara Otunnu after his second visit to Northern Ireland argued that “Following conflict, the prospects of recovery often depend largely on giving priority attention to young people in the rebuilding process, rehabilitating young people affected by war, and restoring their sense of hope. This issue must become a priority. All key actors responsible for developing post-conflict peace-building programmes …. should make the rights and protection of children a central concern in their planning, programming and resource allocation.” He appealed to political leaders “to address the basic concerns of children in Northern Ireland, particularly social and educational integration, youth unemployment, substance abuse and poverty, improved access to health facilities and housing, increased access to counselling, and improved administration of child protection and juvenile justice. Children's rights should be incorporated into the new Northern Ireland Bill of Rights.”
(United Nations General Assembly Fifty-fifth session: Agenda item 110: Promotion and protection of children’s rights. 3 October 2000:pp 9-10) The evidence assembled below supports his view.
Part 1: Children’s rights to care, protection
and freedom of expression

1. Particular circumstances: the legacy of the conflict.
The impact of the conflict on society in Northern Ireland is immense. What we call “The Troubles”, when viewed proportionately to the small size of Northern Ireland’s population, was a war in scale, intensity and duration. More people died in the political violence of the past quarter century in Northern Ireland – 3,352 by the end of 2002 – than in any similar period in Ireland over the past two centuries, with the possible exception of the 1922-23 Irish Civil War. In addition, about 50,000 people have been injured, representing just over 3 per cent of the population. If we extrapolate these figures to Britain, some 126,000 people would have died, with 1.8 million people injured. This represents just under half of all British deaths (265,000) during the Second World War. Further extrapolating the deaths to the United States, some 608,000 would have died, notably more than died during the Second World War (405,000) and nine times the American war dead in Vietnam. (Hayes and McAllister, 2003).

In the Poverty and Social Exclusion NI survey, half of all household respondents said they knew someone who had been killed in the conflict. (Hillyard et al, 2005) The impact of conflict goes far beyond the question of knowing someone who was killed. Other experiences have had a major impact: the shock of witnessing a violent event, being forced to move house, fear of travelling out of one’s own area. There is a strong coincidence too, between experience of the conflict and experience of poverty, as will be argued below. An acknowledgement of this relationship should be reflected in government policy to impact on poverty in the region, if those policies are to be successful. Yet, government responses to poverty generally fail to even mention the conflict, still less address its legacy.

Between 1969 and 2003 as a result of political conflict in Northern Ireland:
• 274 children ages 17 and under died;
• 629 young people ages 18 to 21 lost their lives.;
• The18 to 23 age group suffered the highest number of deaths;
• 36% of all those killed were children and young people
• More than half of all those killed were 29 years and under;
• Over 90% of those killed were young men;
• Almost three quarters of children under the age of 18 killed in the Troubles have been Catholic, a fifth were Protestant, and the remaining 6% were from outside Northern Ireland;
• The overwhelming majority lived in those areas that experience the highest levels of deprivation and family poverty;
• Almost half (48%) of all deaths of those 21 were concentrated in Belfast, North and West Belfast in particular. A further 9% of deaths under 21 were in Derry-Londonderry, with other concentrations in the border counties.
(Smyth et al, 2004)

About half were killed by republican paramilitaries, a further quarter by loyalist paramilitaries and the rest by the British Army, with about 3% killed by the RUC. Nine children have been killed by rubber and plastic bullets, the youngest just ten years old; seven of those killed by British paratroopers on Bloody Sunday were 18 or under. A number of young “joyriders” have been killed or injured by police and army personnel, and four children were killed by army vehicles (Fay et al., 1998).

There are no complete figures for children injured as a result of the political conflict. The Northern Ireland Office, however, does provide a breakdown for those shot or beaten by paramilitaries in “punishment attacks.” Between 1991 and 1997, 120 young people were shot (usually in the kneecaps) and 234 assaulted by paramilitaries. Again, all these young people live in the most disadvantaged communities (Smyth, 1998). The most recent figures (2004-05) available for punishment beatings was 109 in the year, but we do not know how many of these targeted children or young people.

Plastic bullets pose a particular threat to children and young people given the size of the bullet relative to the size of a child (Leitch & Kilpatrick, 1999). Although there are no figures for the number of children injured by rubber and plastic bullets, there have been several children severely disabled by plastic bullets, and several of them were blinded.

Conflict and trauma
There is growing evidence that the conflict has had a traumatizing effect on far larger numbers of children and young people than was formerly acknowledged. Leitch and Kilpatrick (1999) researched the effect of political conflict on children’s education in Northern Ireland. They found that virtually every one of the 78 pupils they spoke to initially tended to minimize the effects of political conflict on his or her life and education. However, when the respondents were probed, substantial evidence was uncovered of often very traumatic impact by the conflict on the young person’s life and education. Smyth et al, (2004) found that the children in their study who had been deeply affected by the conflict had “difficulties in concentration and the aggressive behaviour that followed their traumatisation was misinterpreted by others and seen as deliberately disruptive behaviour”.

In the aftermath of the Omagh bomb of August 1998, which killed 29 people, more than one third of those seeking trauma counselling were children, some as young as 2 years old. A body of work that centres on the effects of the bomb includes a school based survey to assess the extent and nature of psychiatric morbidity among children and adolescents aged between 8 and 18 years living in the Omagh area 15 months following the bomb (McDermott et al., 2004). Around 14% of children and 16% of adolescents sampled had some direct experience of the bombing. This study found that as the degree of exposure to the bomb increased, so did the levels of reported symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety among children. Girls reported higher levels of depressive feelings and anxiety than boys, In addition, higher levels of overall anxiety were identified in younger children. Among adolescents, girls had a higher risk of suffering from a psychological disorder and reported higher PTSD scores.

The impact of the ‘Holy Cross’ blockade, which directly involved the children seeking to attend their primary school, has not yet been scientifically measured. However, six months after the loyalist attacks on the children ended, one of the teachers told The Guardian newspaper (25 June 2002) "We have children waking up in the middle of the night screaming and not knowing what they are screaming about".

Shortage of mental health services
The serious shortage of mental health services, both community and hospital based, for children and young people in Northern Ireland was noted by research for NI’s Commissioner for Children and Young People (NICCY, 2004) and by the Social Services Inspectorate (2005, see below for further details). This is particularly concerning given the growing evidence of psychological distress among so many of our children and young people. The NICCY research, for example, points to the high rate of suicides by young people where there was evidence of a “relationship between trauma due to the conflict, to paramilitary threats and to forced exiling and economic marginalisation and social exclusion…are the contexts in which hopelessness, helplessness and despair accumulate in the minds of children who self harm”.

Concentration of poverty in areas most affected by the conflict

There is a marked concentration of poverty in a relatively small proportion of Northern Ireland’s electoral wards. Many of these wards are in and around the areas most impacted by the conflict. In fact, a map of the areas where child poverty is most concentrated in Northern Ireland will match very closely the map of areas where the conflict has been most intense. (Fay et al, 1998) There is growing evidence that the interaction of conflict with poverty tends to exacerbate both. (Hillyard et al, 2005) While poverty does not cause conflict, the evidence both locally and internationally indicates that conflict feeds on poverty while undermining the potential of those living in poverty to escape it. For example, a report from the 1997 Northern Ireland Health and Social Wellbeing Survey (O’Reilly and Browne, 2001) indicates that people in poorer households were more likely to suffer significant health stresses and were also more likely to have borne the brunt of the Troubles either in their areas or on their lives. Variation in intensity of political violence between different areas of Northern Ireland has been linked to area differences in the level of psychological disorder. (Cairns and Wilson, 1991; Cairns and Wilson, 1993)

The Bill of Rights needs to take account of the right of children to all appropriate measures needed to ensure the protection and care of children in the course of conflict (UNCRC, Article 38) and their “recovery and reintegration” (UNCRC, Article 39) in its aftermath.

Relationships between young people and the police
An uneasy relationship between young people and the police is not unusual in industrial societies. But the particular contested nature of policing in Northern Ireland has led to a level of hostility and suspicion between young people and the police here which adds to sectarian tension and disorder. (Jarman and O’Halloran, 2001; Jarman et al, 2002) Despite a police reform process as part of the transition from conflict, studies have continued to find young people experiencing contact with the police as “predominantly negative”. Ellison (2001) in research on the RUC had found that children from “socio-economically disadvantaged areas” were more than twice as likely to have been stopped and searched than other children.

Quinn and Jackson (2003) researched the detention and questioning of children and young people. Their study found that over half of those detained were released within three hours, a further quarter between three and six house, 13% between six and twelve hours and 7% between twelve and twenty four hours. Only 15% of those detained were eventually charged, while 78% were searched, 52% were photographed, 70% fingerprinted and 36% had a sample taken for DNA testing. The researchers reported complaints from solicitors and appropriate adults that fingerprinting etc. criminalised young people.

Hamilton et al (2003) studies the views of young people in the 16-24 age range on police accountability. They found that 56% of young men and 28% of young women reported contact with the police in the last twelve months. Being stopped and searched by the police and being moved on were the most frequent reasons for contact. Most young people regarded this as harassment. 70% of complaints by young people to the Police Ombudsman’s Office were for “oppressive behaviour” by police, compared to 41% of complaints by over 25 year olds. The broad category of “oppressive behaviour” includes assault and harassment. An additional 12% of young people’s complaints were for “incivility”. Thus, four out of five young people who complained considered they had been treated with varying levels of disrespect. The young people’s complaints were also more likely to refer to events that occurred between 9pm and 6 am and at weekends, than those of people aged 25 and over.

The right of children and young people to protection from discrimination and abuse, to physical integrity and to freedom of expression must be included in the Bill of Rights. These rights are particularly necessary given the impact of segregation on children and young people.

2. Particular circumstances: segregation in housing, education, health and leisure services
The impact of segregation on young people
Northern Ireland is a highly segregated society. Although there was always a tendency toward segregation, particularly in education and employment, the past 30 years have seen a marked increase in segregated housing. The census figures suggest that more than half the population in Northern Ireland now lives in areas that are more than 90% Catholic or Protestant. Strict residential segregation is most marked in public housing, with more mixed options available in private housing. Highly segregated areas are often the most disadvantaged and suffer stigmatization, discrimination, security force surveillance, and, often, harassment. Sectarian attacks on the areas or on people entering or leaving are also commonplace.

Despite children and young people in Northern Ireland having much in common, whatever their community background, children living in the most impoverished parts of the region tend to learn very young that there is a ‘them’ and an ‘us’. Some research suggests that the very fact that segregation exists, and in particular the divided nature of our education system, emphasises group differences and hostilities and so initiates children into the conflict. Implicit values within the school (or the schoolyard) – often referred to by educationalists as the ‘hidden curriculum’– further reinforce the negative messages of segregated schooling. Further, as the draft Children’s Strategy points out, the segregated nature of education and of public, including leisure, services is costly and goes some way to explaining the poor provision in Northern Ireland of many public services. In fact, Donnelly and Osborne point out that our segregated education system means there are 40% more secondary schools per head of population than the UK average, with associated additional costs to the education budget.

There is growing evidence that from a very early age children in Northern Ireland have some understanding of group labels and that many come to school already identifying with one community. There is now research to show that it is children who are living in poverty who are most likely to gain this early awareness of sectarian labels and, by age 7 – 8 to have developed strong, negative attitudes and prejudices towards the other community. (Connolly and Healy, 2004)

This research indicated that In terms of their day-to-day experiences, there was little to distinguish the Protestant and Catholic children. Rather, the major source of influence on the children’s lives was where they lived. The children who developed sectarian attitudes at a very young age lived in deprived working class areas where sectarian tensions are relatively high. They had early experience of sporadic incidents of violence; stone-throwing and conflict was common between children and young people at nearby interface areas. Those who were older when they developed sectarian attitudes tended to live relatively affluent, middle-class areas with little or no direct experience of the violence and sectarian tensions in society.

While 3 – 4 year old children in the poor areas recognise and demonstrate some awareness of particular events and symbols associated with their own community and show a preference for those events and symbols, children in the better off areas are only starting to develop such awareness and preference at age 10 – 11.



Part 2: The importance of socio-economic rights for children

The remainder of the evidence presented here is aimed at explaining why socio-economic rights for children must be guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Such rights include healthcare, social services, accommodation, an adequate standard of living and a healthy and sustainable environment.


3. Particular circumstances: the high level of child poverty in Northern Ireland

There is considerable evidence to demonstrate that Northern Ireland has higher levels of children living in poverty than any other region in the UK or Ireland. Research funded by OFMDFM (Hillyard et al, 2003) showed 38% of children living in households that have low incomes and lack three or more necessities. The research showed a fifth of all households lacked six or more items because they could not afford them. The risk of poverty is higher in Northern Ireland than in Britain and a further 12% of children are at risk of falling into poverty i.e. they live in a family which has a number of risk factors, e.g. three or more children, lone parent, or disabled member – which means that every other child in the region is living in, or at risk of, poverty. There is evidence to suggest that the relative disadvantage faced by some groups, particularly the children of lone parents and of a disabled parent, is actually increasing despite government anti-poverty measures. (Dignam, 2003)

There is a marked concentration of poverty. Over half of all children that live in households in receipt of Income Support reside in 16 percent of wards. Over three quarters living in just 37 percent of wards (McClelland, 2003). Many of these wards are in and around the areas most impacted by the conflict.

The level of child poverty in some parts of the region is even higher. One in three wards in the Derry City Council area have a child poverty rate of more than 70 percent, while most of the remaining wards with the highest levels of child poverty are in North and West Belfast.

Not only is child poverty higher here, but the cost of bringing up children is also higher. The cost of food in Northern Ireland is considerably higher than in Britain, even than London and the South East. The 2003-4 Family Spending Survey found, for example, that the average amount per household spent on food is 20% higher in the North of Ireland than in the North East of England (ONS, 2005). Even taking the larger household sizes into account, the cost of basic foodstuffs in considerably higher in Northern Ireland. Thus, it is even more difficult for parents to provide a nutritious diet for their children. This may go some way to explaining why it is that, over the last 10 years, the percentage of children in Northern Ireland aged between twelve and fifteen years of age who are overweight or obese has increased by more than a quarter. The Chief Medical Officer for Northern Ireland has said that the rise in obesity among both adults and children is due mainly to an unhealthy diet and lack of exercise. (DHSS, 2005)

Parents here also have to spend considerably more on children’s clothes than is the average in Britain. While all clothing and footwear costs 37% more than the UK average, children’s clothes are even more expensive. The cost of clothes for girls (5 – 15 years old) are 50% higher than the UK average and for boys (5-15) they are 87% higher. Footwear is also considerably more expensive – some 51% dearer than the UK average.

The cost of keeping a house warm and healthy is also higher: 114,000 children in Northern Ireland live in fuel poor homes. The Government defines fuel poverty as where a household needs to spend 10% or more of income to meet fuel costs. The 2001 NI Housing Conditions Survey found that 203,000 households (33% of all households) are in fuel poverty; This compares with 9% of households in England and 13% in Scotland that were fuel poor in the same period. Levels of fuel poverty in Wales are similar to Northern Ireland at 31%. Fuel costs are considerably higher than in Britain. The 2003-4 Family Spending Survey (ONS,2004) found fuel costs in Northern Ireland were 143% of the UK average at £16.90 a week, compared to £11.80 a week in the UK generally. Fuel costs in Scotland and Wales are higher also, but the difference is nothing like as great, at £12.10 a week in Wales (102.5% of UK) and £12.40 in Scotland (105%).

These particular circumstances of the experience of poverty in Northern Ireland led Save the Children researchers to conclude that children in Northern Ireland are at greater risk of severe poverty than children in Britain, despite their families receiving similar levels of benefit (Monteith and McLaughlin, 2004).

4. Particular circumstances: low level of family support

There are no available statistics on the numbers of children affected by the imprisonment of a parent. However, since the release of political prisoners as part of the 1998 Belfast Agreement, there have been studies of the impact of a parent’s imprisonment on children from both loyalist and republican families. Both studies found that children were often not told the full story about their parent’s imprisonment, often with damaging effects on the child’s emotional and psychological development. While most political prisoners’ families struggled to meet basic needs, the material consequences of a parent’s long-term imprisonment were not as harmful to children as the psychological effects. In her study of the children of loyalist ex-prisoners, Spence (2002) found children suffered depression, anxiety and panic attacks as well as general confusion and worry. Teachers, parents and children themselves noticed changes in behaviour including an increased tendency to violence and a withdrawal from friends.

Children of both loyalist and republican political prisoners found police raids on their home traumatic. Both reported difficulties maintaining meaningful contact with imprisoned parents. Both groups of children also had difficulties adjusting to the release of their imprisoned parents. Jamieson and Grounds’ (2002) study of the effects of long-term imprisonment on republican prisoners and their families reported a number of the ex-prisoners were having difficulties in their relationships with their children, while a report by the Derry group Cúnamh found some of the children of ex-prisoners were resentful towards their returned parent and found it difficult to accept boundaries set down by him/her.

All the studies of prisoners’ families, including qualitative research for NICCY, found that schools and other agencies failed to understand or address the difficulties faced by the children of prisoners and ex-prisoners. The NICCY research suggested that the needs of children of all prisoners, political or not, were not dissimilar. Both groups need the establishment of child-centred, flexible visits and appropriate non-stigmatised support through mainstream services. This is particularly important as ex-prisoners groups are reported in the NICCY research as claiming that unemployment among the children of ex-prisoners is as high as 87%.

Despite high levels of child poverty and the impact of conflict, per capita expenditure on family and child care has been considerably lower than that in England. Information from the Social Services Inspectorate shows per capita expenditure on Family and Child Care programmes has been between a third and a quarter less than that in England.

This is particularly concerning when one takes into account the higher rates of children on the Child Protection Register in Northern Ireland. In 2002 there were around 1,600 children in NI on the Child Protection Register, a rate of 3.4 per 1,000 children. This compares with 2.3 per 1,000 in England and 3.0 per 1,000 in Wales. The number of children per 10,000 on the Child Protection Register has increased from 31.8 in 1999 to 33.9 in 2002 in NI, compared with a fall from 28.2 to 23.1 in England during the same period. (DHSS, 2004)

There is no evidence to suggest that the higher number of children on the CPR here is due to better reporting or different organizational arrangements. Rather, the numbers may be due to higher levels of poverty, poor provision of family support services and particular difficulties faced by cross-community families. The lower per capita spending, combined with higher levels of child poverty and subsequent family difficulties, means that much more of Northern Ireland’s social care expenditure on children is on statutory protection duties, rather than on preventative family support measures. Northern Ireland continues to have one of the lowest provision of childcare not only within the UK but Europe as a whole (ECNI, 2003).

In addition, there are higher levels of disability and ill-health in Northern Ireland than in other parts of these islands. Some of this is due to physical and mental damage caused by the conflict. But much is related to higher levels of poverty and poor diet generally, but particularly the poor diet of many expectant mothers. For example, the rate of births with a congenital malformation in NI is over twice the level in England and Wales. (DHSS, 2004a) and the 2001 Census suggests that 5% (22,036) of children aged under sixteen have a limiting illness or disability. Health Research Board figures indicate a learning disability prevalence of 16.3 per 1,000 population, which is more than double that of the Republic of Ireland (ROI). Comparable figures are not available for children with learning disability in Britain. We do know that, across all age groups, 9.7 people per 1,000 are known to Social Services as having a learning disability, compared to 5.45 per 1,000 in Scotland. (DHSS, 2004b)

In spite of these higher levels of disability, there is poorer provision of services for families dealing with disability. Some of this dearth of services is likely to be because of the high costs of duplicating some services due to the segregated nature of society here. The recent controversy, when young learning disabled people from a Catholic background said they would be afraid to attend a proposed new day centre on the ‘wrong side’ of the interface in North and West Belfast, is an example of the difficulties faced by service planners, particularly in interface areas.




5: Particular circumstances:
poor provision of support for children with additional needs

A recent inspection of children who had long stays in hospitals in Northern Ireland, found that 173 children had been in hospital for three months or longer during the 28 month period under consideration by the Inspection Team. Of these, the vast majority, (84%) were accommodated within one of eight hospitals that have a regional remit.

51 children and young people had spent periods of three consecutive months or longer in mental health hospitals; of these, 5 children had been admitted to adult psychiatric units, 28 children had been admitted to the Child and Family Centre at Forster Green Hospital and 18 young people to the Young People’s
Centre, then based in the centre of Belfast.

The latter two facilities are the only inpatient mental health units in Northern Ireland dedicated exclusively to the care of children and young people. The Inspection Team supported the need for inpatient mental health provision for children and young people but noted that both facilities, were operating without the full multidisciplinary staffing necessary to achieve the best outcomes for children and young people in the shortest possible time. Both had significant waiting lists and a number of children had been admitted to, or remained in, each facility longer than was clinically necessary due to lack of community support or alternative specialist services, such as day units, appropriate to their. Neither service was operating in buildings that were suited to their purpose. There is a plan to replace the current regional inpatient mental health facility for young people with an 18-bed purpose built adolescent unit on the Forster Green site.

During the 28 month period under consideration by the Inspection Team, 44 children and young people had been admitted for periods of three consecutive months or longer to hospitals for the learning disabled. One children’s ward in Muckamore Abbey Hospital accounted for 17 children in the sample. Of the remaining 27 children and young people, 20 were accommodated in the adult wards of Muckamore and 7 in other learning disability hospitals. The hospitals inspected, where some children had been accommodated for a number of years, were found to be “wholly unacceptable environments for the care of children or young people”. That children who do not have intensive nursing needs should be accommodated in hospitals indicates a catastrophic failure in support services for the families of those children. (SSI, 2005)

6. Particular circumstances: the interaction of poverty, segregation and conflict
There is already significant evidence of the role of the conflict and its legacy in exacerbating the difficulties of addressing child poverty in Northern Ireland. Conflict undermines economic growth. Higher levels of mental ill-health are significantly related to the Troubles and these reduce the ability of people to take up employment opportunities. The high levels of fear that remain in those areas that have taken the brunt of the conflict are reflected in high levels of unemployment and long-term unemployment in those areas. A large-scale survey of the impact of fear on Belfast ‘interface’ communities collected data on over 4,500 individuals. It revealed that just one in twelve worked in areas dominated by the ‘other’ religion. Almost half would not travel, due to fear, through an area dominated by the other community – during the daytime. Between a third and two thirds of respondents said their job seeking activities are limited by fear.(Shirlow, 2003)

The interaction of poverty, segregation and conflict on adults has been, and is, immense. But the fact that segregation has worsened over recent years, that sectarian attitudes are growing and that child poverty remains pervasive in those areas most impacted by ongoing conflict presents a very serious risk for the future. Further, the history of the conflict has resulted in a high toleration of violence here. It has also "normalised" recourse to violence as a method of conflict resolution, demonstration of opposition to something, or drawing attention to grievances and injustices (perceived or felt).

Conclusion

The incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is required as a starting point towards establishing such a human rights benchmark. However, it is acknowledged internatioanlly that the convention represents the minimum children’s rights standards. In addition to the incorporation of the Convention, the Bill of Rights will need to provide additional protection for children and young people.

The Bill of Rights should guarantee to children socio-economic rights such as the right to healthcare, social services, accommodation, an adequate standard of living and a healthy and sustainable environment. These rights are fundamental to a child's survival, development and participation in society. This is true for all members of society but particularly so for children, as the most vulnerable members of society. Without such rights, a child's right to participate, to protection and to have their best interests respected becomes meaningless.

The Bill of Rights also needs to acknowledge that young people from areas affected by conflict have particular needs. The provision of socio-economic rights in a Bill of Rights would provide a basis for addressing the problems of the past and form a sound basis for a more peaceful future. It would also reflect international trends and experience where all human rights are seen as indivisible and interdependent.




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