UN Convention - Our shameful record on child rights

AFTER 14 years of having ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), it might be expected that the Government would have implemented key areas of it.

Far from it, and that is why the Government should be suitably embarrassed when it is criticised, as it is expected to be, when it appears before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child next Wednesday.

However, Government discomfort before a UN body is the least of the problem, even though it is symptomatic of the dearth of protective measures, especially legislative, that exist in this country to protect the rights of children.