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Submission to the United Nations on children's rights

Children & Young People Engagement team
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The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UN Committee) will be assessing how well the UK is implementing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 2022. As part of the process, RCPCH members, children and young people have supported the submission sharing areas for assessment and improvement.
Last modified
25 January 2021
Post date
9 December 2020

The UN Committee monitors the progress of each UN State to assess how they are protecting children's rights under the UNCRC. The UK was last assessed in 2016, with preparations underway for the next cycle of monitoring which will conclude in 2022.ÌýThe UN Committee has 18 independent experts on children's rights from different countries.

The process started in 2020, with a call for written evidence to the children's sector, which RCPCH contributed to with support from College members, children, young people and staff.ÌýOur submissions were shared with the lead organisation for each nation, who then collated, assessed and reviewed the evidence to provide a List of Issues Prior to Reporting (LOIPR) to the UN Committee.

In some nations, thematic roundtables and calls or oral evidence took place, which also included RCPCH members or staff, further explaining the challenges and areas for assessment and development for children and young people, including those identified in the launched in March 2020.Ìý

The LOIPR will be reviewed by the UN Committee until February 2021, when they will publish the final list of issues which will form part of the monitoring review in 2022.ÌýYou can find out more about the process in the .Ìý

RCPCH members identified the following key priorities to support children and young people: 

Image showing member priorities: Reduce the rate of health inequalities. Need for routine health data collection on child protection. Address the increasing prevalence of mental health conditions and poor provision of mental health support services

Which echoed responses from over 300 children and young people under 18 across the UK:

Image showing Children and young people's priorities: Improving support for children and young people's mental health. Stopping child poverty. Keeping children and young people safe from neglect or abuse.

Submissions for each nation will be published during December 2020. Please see the External links section at the bottom of this page for currently published submissions to date. These will share the priorities, feedback and evidence from 90+ children's sector organisations concerning children's rights, health, poverty, COVID-19, the inequalities faced by different groups of children and young people, increasing numbers of suicide, education provision and attainment, as well as identifying where there have been areas of improvement since the last examination.

RCPCH will continue to promote and protect children and young people's rights within our work, so that they have the best start possible into adulthood.

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