Pushing the Boundaries: A guide to increasing the realisation of children’s civil rights and freedoms

This guide has been developed to support Child Rights Governance (CRG) staff to develop programme work to strengthen the civil rights and freedoms of children within their broader CRG programme strategy. It expands upon Save the Children’s overarching CRG programme guidance by providing more detailed guidance in the particular area of civil rights and freedoms. It especially builds on the sub-sections on children’s civil rights and freedoms, support systems for birth registration and efforts to increase the rights of stateless children [Section 2].

The guide is entitled ‘Pushing the Boundaries’ as it necessitates efforts to enter into new areas of programming and to increase systematic efforts by governments, civil society, media and other actors to develop policies, legislation, structures and processes that increase the fulfilment of civil and political rights for all children. It also requires risk assessments and risk mitigation strategies to identify strategic opportunities and planning to overcome obstacles specific to each socio-cultural and political context in order to effectively and safely promote children’s civil rights and freedoms.

The guide is divided into ten key sections. Following the introduction (Section 1), Sections 2-4 provide background information to inform the development of programmes on children’s civil rights and freedoms, including understanding of key concepts, an overview of key programming options, tips on ‘getting started’, and consideration of key obstacles and risks. Sections 5–10 focus on specific articles in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (UNCRC) which concern children’s civil rights and freedoms, in order to provide information and ideas for programme activities, case examples, and sources of further reading.