Sara Boyce, Children’s Human Rights Advisor Children’s Law Centre and Save the Children

1. How do you measure whether government is effectively delivering on its children’s rights obligations? Sara Boyce, Children’s Human Rights Advisor Children’s Law Centre and Save the Children

2. Purpose of workshop To explore how human rights indicators could be developed to monitor government compliance with its international human rights obligations and what some of the potential benefits and challenges involved in doing this might be

3. Overview of international work on human rights indicators “It seems clear that we still know more about what to measure conceptually and legally than how to measure it” (Dr. Todd Landman)

4. Definitions …a human right indicator derives from, reflects and is designed to monitor realization or otherwise of a specific human rights norm, usually with a view to holding a duty-bearer to account. (OHCHR. 2002. Draft Guidelines: A Human Rights Approach to Poverty Reduction Strategies, pp. 7-8)

5. So how does that differ from a social indicator? Essentially, what tends to distinguish a human rights indicator from a standard disaggregated indicator of socio-economic progress is less its substance than (i) its explicit derivation from a human rights norms and (ii) the purpose which is put viz-a-viz human rights monitoring with a view to holding duty-bearers to account (OHCHR. 2002. Draft Guidelines: A Human Rights Approach to Poverty Reduction Strategies, pp. 7-8.)

6. Explicit linkages with international human rights instruments Recognition of the indivisible, interdependent and inter-related nature of human rights Emphasis on participation, an inclusionary and an empowering process of development. Non-discrimination and a process of promoting equality Accountability and the rule of law Recognition that some human rights can be realised only progressively, others that could be directly guaranteed need to be protected from denial, non-retrogression and violations Recourse to redress; legal as well as administrative Key principles

7. International work on developing child rights indicators Call by UNCRC Committee in mid 1990s for development of indicators related to various articles of the UNCRC that could meet some basic requirements such as validity, objectivity, sensitivity, comparability, accuracy and disaggregation

8. General Comment No 5 “Sufficient and reliable data collection on children, disaggregated to enable identification of discrimination…needs to extend over whole period ofchildhood…nationally applicable indicators…qualitative as well as quantitative studies…evaluation requires the development of indicators related to all rights guaranteed by the Convention…in many cases only children themselves are in a position to indicate whether their rights are being fully recognised and realised” (UNCRC/GC/2003/5 paras 48 and 50)

9. UNICEF global conference in 1998 on developing a set of core child rights indicators for global monitoring Used the six inter-connected clusters of CRC articles and added a seventh ( general principles) Result was an inventory of 119 indicators Good illustration of how CRC framework can be used as basis for developing indicators Common process rather than a common set of indicators Actual indicators selected are often not transferable across countries www.childwatch.uio.no/cwi/projects/indicators/monitoring Projects to develop child rights indicators

10. UNCRC Clusters of Rights • General principles non-discrimination (art 2) best interests (art 3) right to life, survival and development (art 6) respect for the views of the child (art 12) • General measures of implementation • Civil rights and freedoms • Family environment and alternative care • Basic health and welfare • Education, leisure and cultural activities • Special protection measures

11. From child well-being to child rights indicators – a case study • Social policy thinking on measuring progress in children’s lives has moved from using the concept of the child’s welfare to that of the child’s well-being • While many of the indicators associated with well-being could meet the criteria of a child rights indicator there will inevitably be some gaps

12. Attendance at school Enrolment in childhood care and education Enrolment in education/completion of school Parental education level attained Quality of childhood care and education (Source: National set of well-being indicators in Ireland NCO) Child well-being indicators for education

13. Proportion of adolescents who are literate, disaggregated by group Proportion of school leavers with recognised qualifications, disaggregated by group Policy of school attendance for school age mothers Legislation in place on education provision for children with disabilities Existence of a policy on bullying Anti-bullying forum working effectively to monitor operation of the anti-bullying policy Policy on teaching English as a 2nd language School council to facilitate student participation in decision making % of schools using such a mechanism Suggested additional child rights indicators for education

14. Conclusions • There is a need to systematise the approach to indicators by using a human rights framework • Potential to combine existing social indicators and those which are uniquely children’s rights indicators • Children’s rights principles should be reflected in the indicators developed • Children’s rights indicators should provide measurements in relation to both the duty bearer and the rights holder • Not only one set of children’s rights indicators • Need for greater dialogue between the different sectors

15. Challenges • How to move from the abstract to the concrete? • How to address the lack of convergence between work on social indicators and human rights indicators ? • Methodological issues including how to come up with a realistic and workable number of indicators and how to tackle the existing gaps in data?