Oral question asked in the House of Lords, by Baroness Walmsley (Liberal Democrat). It was answered on Thursday, 31 January 2008.

Children: Rights

Question: My Lords, will the Minister say what the Government are doing to educate our children, and indeed the general public, about what the convention means to them? At the very least, will the Government encourage local authorities to take up UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools programme—I declare an interest as a trustee of UNICEF—which teaches children what their rights are and what their responsibilities are to other children and adults?

Answer: My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right; it is very important that the public at large, and children in particular, are very much made aware of their rights under the UN convention—one of the most popular conventions that there have ever been. We have a number of programmes on raising awareness, as the noble Baroness will know. We are committed to operating a number of web-based portals, enabling children and adults to access information about the convention. For parents and young people, Directgov has a popular section on it. For children under 10, DirectgovKids has a section on it. We also have specific training on the convention for all those who work with children.

Secondary information