The European Union’s Plan for Children’s Rights

Image of stars in a circle representing the European Union emblem. The European Union (EU for short) is a group of 27 countries that work together.

Image of a handshake. Children’s rights are promises that the EU and governments made so children can have a good life.

Image of European Union stars surrounding the world and children.

Here are some examples of children's rights

Image about examples of children’s rights: To be safe, illustrated by adult hands holding a child. To play, illustrated by a playground. To learn, illustrated by a child reading a book. Having a say, illustrated by a child talking to an adult.

to be safe

to play

to learn

to have a say

How will the EU put children’s rights in practice?

Image of one adult teaching other adults. The EU will collect information and teach people about children’s rights.

Image of people in governments talking to each other. Governments and others will learn from each other how best to put children’s rights into practice.

Image of the euro currency symbol. The EU will spend money on things that are needed for children to enjoy their rights, such as training for adults who work with children.

The biggest set of children’s rights promises is called the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

What are the top 6 things in the plan?

Children’s participation

Everyone will understand that children have a right to a say and put it into practice.

Image of child standing between two adults, all holding hands.

Included in society

Children will be able to get good education and healthcare and families will have enough money to meet children’s needs.

Image of an adult standing in front of a child holding a shield.

Safe from harm

Children will be kept safe from violence and children who are harmed will get the help they need.

Image of the scales of justice.

Child-friendly justice

The police, lawyers and judges will treat children fairly, listen to them and meet their needs.

Image of Wi-Fi connection symbol.

Digital world

All children will be able to get access to and stay safe in the digital world.

Image of the globe.

Helping children across the world

All children in the world will enjoy their rights, even when there is war, famine or disease.

When making the plan the EU talked to lots of people, including 10,000 children.

1 Children’s participation

Image of a clipboard with the EU to do list. Ended by a tick mark.

What will the EU do?

Prepare a plan to promote children’s and young people’s participation.

Put laws and policies in child-friendly language.

Teach others how to use child-friendly language.

Consult with children when developing EU policies.

Why was this chosen?

Some people do not agree that children have a right to have a say in decisions.
Others think it is too difficult or would cost too much money.

Speech bubble: If not us then who? Says a boy who is 16 years old.

Boy, 16

2 Included in society

What will the EU do?

Make sure families have enough money to meet children’s needs.

Make sure there is good healthcare for children.

Meet the needs of children with disabilities.

Make sure children are able to eat healthily.

Make sure all children get a good education.

Why was this chosen?

Many children live in families that do not have enough money to meet their needs.
More needs to be done to make sure that all children can have good health care.
Many children do not get a good education and cannot take part in after-school activities.

Being included in society means that everyone is included (no matter how much money they have or what their background is).

3 Safe from harm

What will the EU do?

Make sure that everyone works together to keep children safe.

Train adults who work to protect children.

Share information on the best ways to protect children.

Make stronger laws on violence against children.

Why was this chosen?

One in two children across the world is likely to suffer some form of violence each year.
There is a worry that violence against children has increased during COVID-19.

Violence includes neglect, physical and mental harm, sexual abuse and exploitation (this means an adult taking advantage and using a child to make money), and bullying.

4 Child-friendly justice

What will the EU do?

Have children’s rights training for the police, lawyers and judges.

Make laws that support children in the justice system and put them into practice.

Find ways that children can stay in the community and not go to detention centres.

Have everyone accept a decision by one EU country that someone is the parent of a child.

Why was this chosen?

Many children do not feel safe or are not treated equally when taking part in justice systems.
Children often do not have the information they need to understand what is happening.
Child victims often do not report crimes.
Too many children are kept in detention.

The justice system can include the police and courts. Children might be victims, witnesses or accused of a crime. They might also be involved if decisions are being made about their education or who they will live with.

5 Digital world

What will the EU do?

Develop a new plan for a ‘Better internet for children’.

Make sure children with disabilities can benefit from digital technology.

Make laws that require businesses to check for and report online sexual abuse.

Make sure all children have access to digital tools and an internet connection.

Teach children, parents and schools about healthy online activity.

Make sure that information about children is protected online.

Why was this chosen?

Not all children have access to the web or devices such as laptops, smartphones and tablets.
Children are not always safe online. They can be bullied or see violent or sexual content or advertisements for things that are harmful to them (such as alcohol).

The digital world includes access to the internet and devices such as computers, smartphones and Wi-Fi.

6 Helping children across the world

What will the EU do?

Encourage governments everywhere to keep children’s rights promises.

Spend money and take action to protect children from violence.

Prepare an action plan to promote children’s and young people’s participation.

Support equal access to schools and good preschool programmes.

Stop child labour.

Why was this chosen?

Too many children do not have access to good healthcare, food, safe water or education.
Many are affected by wars and natural disasters.
COVID-19 and the impact of climate change have made things worse for many children.

Speech bubble: The EU has a force that unites many countries of the world for peace, cooperation, equality between people, funds projects for organizations working to protect the rights of children. Says a child from Albania.

Child, Albania

This child-friendly version of the EU Strategy on Children’s Rights (The Plan) has been produced in partnership with children themselves. Two groups of children and young people from two schools in Dublin, Ireland, were brought together by the Centre for Children’s Rights at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They worked together to decide how the key messages of ‘The Plan’ should be explained to children in this booklet.

The European Commision would like to give special thanks to: Bremore Educate Together Secondary School, teachers Kathy and Janice, and students Hamilton, Alex, Stuart, Katie, Joseph, Molly and Niamh; and St Joseph’s Secondary School (Rush), teachers Darren, Judy, Kevin and Louise, and students Ellie, Cohen, Mollie, Joshua, Christopher, Evan, Jake, Kelsie, Monika, Cordelia, Stephen and Oisin.

The accessibility of the document was ensured by the Publications Office of the European Union.

Print	ISBN 978–92–76–30997–0	doi:10.2838/375132	DS–03–21–112–EN–C
PDF	ISBN 978–92–76–30998–7	doi:10.2838/707665	DS–03–21–112–EN–N
HTML	ISBN 978-92-76-30995-6	doi:10.2838/298	DS-03-21-112-EN-Q

Manuscript completed in March 2021.

The European Commission is not liable for any consequence stemming from the reuse of this publication.

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2021

The reuse policy of European Commission documents is implemented by Commission Decision 2011/833/EU of 12 December 2011 on the reuse of Commission documents (OJ L 330, 14.12.2011, p. 39).

Except otherwise noted, the reuse of this document is authorised under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY 4.0) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This means that reuse is allowed provided appropriate credit is given and any changes are indicated.

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Cover page, Globe, Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

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