MAKING A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR NORTHERN IRELAND

ISSUES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE





Children and Young People’s Bill of Rights Group
For more information contact
Sara Boyce 90 245704
saraboyce@childrenslawcentre.org or
Teresa Geraghty 90 431123
t.geraghty@scfuk.org.uk



July 2003










Making It Real


You have probably often heard adults saying ‘ah the young people, they are our greatest gift, they are the future for Northern Ireland’. You’ve probably also heard people saying that their one wish is to make sure that the children growing up now will have a better life than they had. The adults saying these things are most likely mean what they say, especially here in Northern Ireland. But is there any real way that adults can make this happen, so they can really show young people they are valued and respected by adults?


The Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland gives the government and other adults in Northern Ireland one of the best chances ever to do just this, by making sure that young people’s human rights are protected and promoted. If the Bill of Rights is going to do this though it will need to:
a) include a list of all the special rights that children and young people need and
b) make sure there is something that can be done if young people’s rights are denied.
As it stands most young people don’t even know if/when their rights are being denied because they don’t know that they have rights in the first place. The Bill of Rights should change all that.


So what rights do young people have?

We all have human rights because we are human – simple as that. The United Nations has come up with lots of different types of legal rights that people have. Civil and political rights include the right to free speech, the right to a fair trial, the right to vote, the right to privacy, the right to practice your religion. Social and economic rights include the right to housing, right to food and water, right to health, to education and the right to a decent standard of living. Because of their age and vulnerability children and young people have special rights such as:

? the right to protection
? the right to participate and to have your say
? the right to a family life
? the right to have decisions that affect you made in your best interests
? the right to be involved in making those decisions.















The United Nations drew up the Convention on the Rights of the Child over 10 years ago. This Convention contains a set of children’s rights that tells governments everywhere how children and young people should be treated. The UK government signed up to this Convention in 1991 and made a promise to give children and young people all of the rights listed in it. However, because it’s still only part of international human rights law and not part of law in the UK itself, it can’t be used to take the government to court if your rights are broken.

There is a human rights law, the Human Rights Act, which has been part of UK law since 2000. This law contains mainly civil and political rights, which are the same as those in the European Convention on Human Rights. It says very little about the kind of rights that children and young people need.


Children and Young People’s Lives in Northern Ireland

Children and young people make up over a quarter of the population of Northern Ireland, a bigger percentage than in England, Scotland or Wales. Because of the conflict, young people’s experience of growing up here has also been different to that of young people in London, Glasgow or Cardiff. At the very least it has probably influenced where you and your family live, if and where your parents work or where you go to school. It may also have had a much more direct effect on you and your family. Over 3,600 people have died and many thousands have been injured in the conflict during the last 30 years. Of these 557 were children and young people under the age of 20 years.


Children and Young People were forgotten about

Another important way that the conflict has affected young people is that your needs as children and young people were forgotten about most of the time. Because politicians were so concerned with the conflict they didn’t think about the needs of children and young people. This includes teenagers, young people with disabilities, young people in care, young people living in rural areas, young Travellers and young Chinese children. Services for children and young people did not get the money they needed and the kinds of laws needed to protect them were not introduced.

Even though all of this broke young people’s human rights in lots of different ways very few young people realised this because they didn’t know that they had rights to start with.






The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement

The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement set out a plan to build a more peaceful and equal society. While it specifically recognised that young people from areas affected by the conflict faced particular difficulties, it also recognised the need to address human rights concerns of all communities, not just the two main communities who had been involved in the conflict.

So will the Agreement help to make sure that young people are treated with more respect and dignity and that their human rights are protected? Will this let adults help young people to see how much they are valued in society? The short answer is ‘It could do, but not necessarily’.

Since the Agreement some really positive things have happened already that will help to improve the lives of children and young people. One of the most important is the setting up of the Office of the Commissioner for Children and Young People, who will act as a Champion for Children’s Rights. Another thing that is happening is the drawing up of a 10 year plan for children and young people (the Children’s Strategy). However it’s important to remember that the Commissioner for Children and Young People will only be able to work with the laws that are already in place to protect children and young people. This is where the Bill of Rights comes in.


What is a Bill of Rights?

A Bill of Rights lists all the basic rights that people in a country are entitled to. In this way people can judge if they are being treated fairly by the government. If they think they are not, they can be protected by the courts. Many other countries like South Africa have a Bill of Rights.


The Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland

The Agreement also said that a Bill of Rights should be drawn up for Northern Ireland. It was recognised that one of the best ways to end the conflict and to build peace was to make sure that everybody living in Northern Ireland was aware of their rights and people’s rights were protected equally. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission was given the job of drawing up a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland that would do the following, among other things:

• Add to the rights in the European Convention on Human Rights
• Deal with ‘the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland’
• Use examples from international human rights laws drawn up by the United Nations, the Council of Europe and elsewhere
• Make sure that the ‘identity and ethos’ of the two main communities is protected and respected




What’s happening with the Bill of Rights?

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has said that the Bill of Rights should “make a real difference to the lives of everyone in Northern Ireland-young and old, rich and poor, long established and newly arrived”. The Commission has done lots of different things to find out what groups of people want to see in the Bill of Rights, including employing somebody to get the views of children and young people. In September 2001 the Human Rights Commission produced a draft of the Bill of Rights. People were then asked what they thought about this draft.

The British and Irish Governments are also planning to set up a ‘round table forum’ in autumn 2003. The plan is that this forum will bring together all of the political parties to try to get agreement among them on the kind of rights they think should go into the Bill. It’s very important that all of the parties give their support to the Bill of Rights. The political parties will also be listening to other people in this forum, including children and young people and/or their representatives.

The round table forum will tell the Human Rights Commission what they think is needed. The Human Rights Commission will then give their final advice to the Secretary of State who will decide whether legislation should be introduced in Westminster to make the Bill of Rights law in Northern Ireland.

What do young people want to see in the Bill of Rights?

When young people were asked about the Bill of Rights, they did not want the rights to be limited to the Unionist and Nationalist communities and they were clear that there should be specific rights for children and young people. (See “What you Said” published by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission 2002). Young people said that they want rights such as:
• the right to equality for all
• the right to the information they need
• the right to have their best interests taken into consideration in any decision affecting them
• the right to have a say and take part in decisions
• the right to a family
• the right to play and to leisure facilities
• the right to protection from threats, harassment, violence and abuse
• the right to a good education relevant to young people’s needs
• the right to work with a minimum wage
• the right to a decent standard of living
• the right to a healthy life
• rights for victims and for young people in conflict with the law

A lot of the rights chosen by the young people are what we call ‘socio-economic rights’. They include the right to a decent standard of living, the right to a healthy life, the right to play and leisure facilities and the right to a minimum wage. If you don’t have these basic things in life then it’s very hard to take an active part in anything else going on around you.

How should the Bill of Rights ‘reflect the particular circumstances’ of Northern Ireland?

As mentioned earlier the Agreement says that the rights in the Bill of Rights should “reflect the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland”.















People have come up with different answers as to what rights need to go into the Bill of Rights to do this. What is decided on will have a big influence on what kind of rights young people could end up with in the Bill of Rights. Here’s how.


Rights for the two main communities only
You could decide that the ‘particular circumstances’ of Northern Ireland are those circumstances that relate to the situation of the Unionist and Nationalist communities only. The kind of rights that you would end up with in the Bill of Rights would include protection from discrimination, equality, identity, criminal justice, language rights and minority rights. Because of the conflict it’s very important that the rights of the two main communities are protected for the future. The Agreement also says that the Bill of Rights should make sure that the ‘identity and ethos’ of the two main communities is protected and respected by the government.

If you take this view then young people from the two main communities would enjoy the right to mutual or equal respect by the state for their identity and ethos. You would not however be given any specific rights as young people, such as the right to have a say in decisions being made about you or the right not to be discriminated against as a young person, regardless of your background.


Rights for everybody
However, if you decide that ‘the particular circumstances’ of Northern Ireland is about the particular circumstances for everybody, not just Unionists and Nationalists, then there is a much better chance that your rights as a young person will be protected in the Bill of Rights. Earlier we talked about the effect of the conflict on children and young people. We also mentioned how, because of the conflict, the needs of children and young people in general were more or less forgotten about. It’s only since the signing of the Agreement that the government and politicians have started to really think about young people and their needs. This is also true for other groups of people in society such as women, older people, ethnic minorities including Travellers, people with disabilities, gay men and lesbian women and asylum seekers and refugees.

If the Bill of Rights is to “make a real difference to the lives of everyone in Northern Ireland-young and old, rich and poor, long established and newly arrive” like the Human Rights Commission has said, then it has to recognise that there are lots of different communities and groups of people living here, with lots of different problems and needs, including children and young people. It is clear that children and young people are among the most vulnerable groups in the community.

Support for children and young people’s rights in the Bill of Rights also came from Olara Otunnu, the United Nations Special Representative on Children in Armed Conflict. He said that “children’s concerns must remain priority concerns throughout the building of peace and the voices of young people should be heard throughout the peace processes”. He also said that “children’s rights should be incorporated into the new NI Bill of Rights.”


Where should children and young people’s rights go in the Bill of Rights?

Young people we talked to said that they want to be able to pick up the Bill of Rights and to be able to easily find the rights that apply to them as young people. In other words, they want to be able to ‘see themselves’ in the Bill of Rights if it’s going to be of any relevance to them.

There are a few different ways of including children and young people’s rights in the Bill of Rights:

1. In a special section or chapter that lists all of the rights that children and young people alone have.
2. Added in to the other chapters where appropriate e.g. under the heading dealing with criminal justice you could have a list of the rights young people have who are involved with the juvenile justice system.
3. A special section or chapter and the rights added into the other chapters as well.


Number 3 seems to be the best option for a number of reasons:

• Young people have asked for a separate section
• Having children and young people’s rights also included throughout the Bill would make sure that they are equally entitled to enjoy the rights granted to everyone in the other sections of the Bill
• It means that young people can pick up the Bill of Rights and immediately find the rights that apply to them without having to read through each and every single chapter to find their rights
• There are some rights that only apply to children and young people e.g. the right to protection, decisions being made in the child’s best interests, that really wouldn’t fit anywhere else except in a separate chapter
• Other Bills of Rights drawn up recently have done it this way e.g. South African Bill of Rights
• It would give a very strong message to young people that their rights are being fully recognised and respected


If young people do get the rights they need in the Bill of Rights, will it really make any difference?

Only if the government is committed to making it work (enforcement). To protect all children, it is necessary to guarantee the rights of all communities as well as all individuals, and then make sure that those in positions of power stick to them.

Unless those in positions of power are forced to make sure that what it says in the Bill of Rights happens in people’s lives, it will not work properly. It could be enforced in the same way as the Human Rights Act which means that courts would look at laws to make sure they fit in with the Bill of Rights. People who feel their rights have been denied or abused could go to court to challenge such neglect or abuse. The Assembly and/or government at Westminster would also have to check all laws it made to ensure that they live up to the Bill of Rights.

The rights could be even better protected by giving courts more power to stop laws which they thought would deny or abuse human rights, and especially to look at laws before they came into force to see if this was the case.

Another really important part of making the Bill of Rights work will be making sure that everybody knows what their rights are.





Conclusion

The Bill of Rights offers a unique chance for the government and other adults to demonstrate to children and young people in Northern Ireland how they are valued and their rights are respected. For the Bill of Rights to do this it needs to:
• Include a special section which lists children and young people’s rights and also makes it clear that all other rights in the Bill also apply to children and young people
• Include all of the rights that are in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and any other rights young people living in Northern Ireland need
• Include ‘socio-economic’ rights like the right to housing, health and a decent standard of living
• Have ways built into it that allow young people to enforce their rights if they are broken










Jargon Buster – what does it mean?



Asylum seeker: A person who has had to leave their own country because they are afraid of being mistreated because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group and who feels they won’t be protected if they stay in their own country. The person applies for asylum in a safe country. The person will not always be an asylum seeker – see refugee below.

Champion : A defender and supporter.

Children's Strategy: This is a ten year plan for improving the lives of children and young people in Northern Ireland. The Children and Young People’s Unit in Stormont has the job of finding out from people, including children and young people, what should go into it and then drawing it up.

Civil and political rights: Rights such as the right to vote, the right to a nationality, not to be tortured, not to be discriminated against.

Discrimination:To be treated unfairly because of say your religion, gender, race or because you live with a disability etc.

Enforcement: Making sure it happens – to insist on it.

Entitled: Something that is yours by right.

Equality: Making sure that everyone has an equal chance. It does not mean treating everyone the same as some people may be at more of a disadvantage than others so they might need to have more help if they are to reach the same goals or have the same chance of achieving something, e.g. passing exams, using a leisure centre.

Ethos: Culture or customs, traditions, way of life.

European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR): An international law from the Council of Europe - not the European Union. It mostly contains civil and political rights.

Human Rights Act:The law in the UK that introduced the ECHR into national or local law and that allowed people to use the ECHR in courts in the UK, without having go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Identity: The things that make you the person you are. It could be your nationality, your gender, religion, sexuality. You have an individual identity as well as several group identities. For example you have an identity as a member of your family that is different to your identity as a student or pupil or worker. Your identity as a young person is different to the identity older people have.
Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission: The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission was set up under the Belfast (Good Friday Agreement) in 1998. Its job is to promote and protect the human rights of everybody in Northern Ireland. It does this in different ways including providing information and education on human rights, providing legal advice and helping people to take court cases if they believe that their rights have been broken and doing research and investigations into the state of human rights in Northern Ireland. One big piece of work it is doing is drafting advice on the Bill of Rights.

Commissioner for Children and Young People: This person will act as a champion for children and young people’s rights (up to the age of 18 or 21 if you have been looked after by Health and Social Services Trusts). They will promote and protect children and young people’s rights. Some of the things they will do will include telling you about your rights, examining laws or what organisations are doing and making sure that they are in keeping with children's rights. The Commissioner’s name is Nigel Williams and he starts his job in October 2003.

Social and economic rights: The right to a proper standard of living, to decent housing, to work and to be properly paid, to health care and to education.

Refugee: A person whose application for asylum in a safe country has been successful. Once they are granted asylum they are entitled to many of the same rights as UK and Irish citizens.

Round Table Forum A gathering of representatives of all the political parties in Northern Ireland to make suggestions as to what should be in the Bill of Rights. Other people and groups, like young people and their organisations, might also be invited to join this Forum.

Irish Traveller: A member of a minority ethnic group. Travellers have always lived in Ireland and are a nomadic group (they travel around the country). Travellers are the second largest minority ethnic group in Northern Ireland (after the Chinese).

United Nations (UN):An organisation with representatives of all of the countries of the world.

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child:An agreement drawn up by the UN and signed by almost all of the countries of the world saying that all children under the age of 18 have rights and promising to do their best to make sure children get these rights.

Vulnerability: In need of protection and help by others.















Special thanks to the members of youth@clc
and to Naomi Sheehan, age 12, who assisted
in the compilation of this booklet.

In March 1999 the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission was set up. One of its tasks was to come up with suggestions for a new Northern Ireland Bill of Rights.

Before doing this the Human Rights Commission decided that it needed to ask other people in Northern Ireland about what they would like to see in a Bill of Rights. Voluntary groups like Save the Children and the Children's Law Centre saw this as a great opportunity to make sure that the ideas that children and young people have got heard so we decided to get involved in the Bill of Rights Project.

First we trained and spoke with over 30 people who work with young people from a wide variety of backgrounds such as young people with disabilities, young parents, young people in the care and justice systems, young people excluded from school and young people who have been directly affected by the conflict.

We started this project in the summer of 2000, planning the training sessions and gathering materials from the Human Rights Commission. In September 2000 we ran the training and from then to the end of January 2001 those workers worked with their own young people to come uup with suggestions for the Northern Ireland Bill of Rights.

In total 80 young people from 10 different groups throughout Northern Ireland took part in the Bill of Rights Project. In February 2001 they all met together with a number of Commissioners and staff members from the Human Rights Commission to tell them what they wanted to see in a Bill of Rights.