Children’s Rights in Northern Ireland

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Children’s Rights in Northern Ireland: Children’s Report (Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People) 2005

Production of a children’s version of the 304-page report detailing research conducted by a team of academics about the state of children’s rights in Northern Ireland in 2004 for the first Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People [NICCY]. Involving 1,171 children and young people, and 350 adults working with/ for children, the research examined children’s lives, the issues they faced, the rights being ignored, and the changes required – identifying priorities for NICCY’s work.

  • Report: Haydon, D. (2005) Children’s Rights in Northern Ireland: what children and the adults who work with them had to say about children’s lives, Report for Children, Belfast: NICCY Link to document

Consultation with Children and Young People about Children’s Rights in Northern Ireland (Children and Young People’s Unit, OFMDFM) 2007

Commission by the Children and Young People’s Unit, OFMDFM, to consult with 132 ‘hard to reach’ children and young people (including children with disabilities and special educational needs, young people in conflict with the law, care leavers, children in an alternative education project, young parents, LGBT young people, children/ young people from minority ethnic communities, Travellers) about children’s rights in Northern Ireland. The subsequent report informed the Northern Ireland contribution to the consolidated 3rd and 4th Periodic Reports submitted by the UK Government to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2007. The findings were delivered in international presentations and publications.

  • Report: Haydon, D. (2007) United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Consultation with Children and Young People, Belfast: Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister Link to document
  • Presentation: Plenary: ‘Voices of the Disempowered: Children’s Rights in the North of Ireland’, Exploring Relations of Power Conference, European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control, Utrecht (2007)
  • Presentation: ‘Children’s Rights in Northern Ireland’, Five Colleges ‘Childhood and Adolescence’ Seminar, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA (2007)
  • Article: Haydon, D. (2008) ‘“Do your promises and tell the truth. Treat us with respect”: Realising the rights of children and young people in Northern Ireland’, Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, Fall 2008, Vol. 1, No 3, pp414-442 Link to document
  • Presentation: ‘Young Voices, Social Change? Children’s Rights in Northern Ireland’, Social Justice, Social Change Research Centre Seminar, University of Western Sydney, Australia (2009)
  • Presentation: ‘Can a children’s rights-based agenda challenge the structural inequalities experienced by children and young people?’, ‘Children and the Law’ Conference, Prato, Italy (2009)
  • Chapter: Haydon, D. (2012) ‘Children’s rights: the effective implementation of rights-based standards’ in R. Sheehan, H. Rhoades and N. Stanley (eds) Vulnerable Children and the Law: International evidence for improving child welfare, child protection and children’s rights, London: Jessica Kingsley, pp23-39 Link to document