Non-legal measures to support incorporation of children’s rights

Contents

Oversight, monitoring and evaluation

Monitoring the effect of reformed legislation on the lives of children serves to assess whether the changes resulted in the intended effects and to identify potential needs for further, or different, reforms.

The purpose of evaluation is to assess the actual impact of legislation, policies, budgets and administrative decisions on children’s rights upon implementation.

Monitoring and evaluation of legislation and implementation is an obligation for States Parties under article 4 of the CRC (i.e. self-monitoring and evaluation).

Self-monitoring and evaluation should be distinguished from independent monitoring and evaluation by NHRIs and ICRIs, and monitoring and evaluation by societal actors, like academic institutions and NGOs/CSOs.

This process should be built into government structures at all levels and as early as possible in the development of legislation.

E.g.: Under Article 51 of the Mongolian Law on Legislation, all newly enacted pieces of legislation must be evaluated to assess their implementation and unintended consequences. In 2020-21, with the support of UNICEF, the Government of Mongolia commissioned an evaluation of the 2016 Law on Child Protection. The Law on Child Protection, along with the Law on the Rights of the Child and the Domestic Violence Law, were enacted to provide comprehensive protection to all children in Mongolia. The law delineated, for the first time, the roles and responsibilities of duty bearers across sectors in preventing and responding to violations of children's rights. The evaluation aimed to highlight lessons learned, identify areas for improvement, document the achievements of key stakeholders and duty bearers, and make recommendations to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of implementing the Law on Child Protection. This included assessing how the child protection system prevented and responded to online child sexual exploitation and abuse. Following the publication of the evaluation in January 2021, on 8 March 2021 a coalition of parliamentarians in Mongolia submitted draft legislation to amend the Law on Child Protection to the State Great Khural (the national parliament).

Parliaments

Providing oversight of the implementation of legislation and policies is an important contribution of parliaments in realising children’s rights. This role is part of their overall duty to ensure accountability for the efficient and effective delivery of expenditures, legislation and programmes to the population by the executive branch of Government.

By monitoring the executive branch at the national and local levels, parliaments can help to increase transparency and accountability and to identify challenges which should be addressed through new legislation or policies (CRC Committee, IPU 2022, para. 6).

There are several methods of oversight that parliaments can use. Examples include:

Oversight through parliamentary committees

Committee oversight gives parliamentarians an opportunity to assess in more depth whether legislation, policies and programmes are effectively implemented in support of children’s rights and, if not, to make recommendations on how to improve implementation.
Parliamentary committees usually have power to demand information and documents from government bodies, to interrogate government officials, and to hold hearings and examinations to inform their understanding of how the executive is discharging its functions.
Committees should consider public engagement, in particular engagement with children.

E.g.: The Irish Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Report issues pre-legislative scrutiny of Bills presented by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and the State bodies within the responsibility of the Department.

Parliamentary inquiries

Parliamentary inquiries are valuable tools that parliamentarians can use to draw attention to children’s rights.
An inquiry can be conducted through an existing parliamentary committee or a new committee can be established for the specific purpose.
Inquiries allow parliamentarians to call witnesses, request and examine government documents, organise public hearings and debate the issues in greater depth.
Inquiries should engage with the public, and in particular children.

E.g.: In the UK, the parliamentary Home Affairs Committee conducted an inquiry into human trafficking in 2008-9. In 2013, following up on the recommendations from that inquiry, the government tabled a Modern Slavery Bill. In March 2014, the parliamentary Joint Committee on the draft Modern Slavery Bill held additional targeted public hearings on the issue. The draft law was passed in 2015 and in 2016. In 2021, a new Modern Slavery (Amendment) Bill was introduced.

Written and oral questions and interpellations

Another way to exercise oversight over the executive is by directly interrogating government ministers.
These mechanisms differ between States, but they all aim to ask questions from Cabinet Ministers and demand a public response.

Source(s): Yamamoto (2007); IPU and UNDP (2017).

Independent monitoring of children’s rights

ICRIs and NHRIs can assess compliance of legislation with international standards as well as its effective implementation, track the state of children's rights in relation to all aspects of the CRC and produce reports for the public and the government, outlining both positive and negative conditions for children's rights in the State Party.

One of the roles of ICRIs and NHRIs is to identify potential obstacles or challenges to the realisation of child rights before they occur and to recommend solutions.

Regular monitoring, research and reporting on issues of concern allows ICRIs and NHRIs to monitor and evaluate the implementation of a new/amended children’s rights legislation. They can identity gaps in the implementation of the legislation or in the content of the reform itself, which can in turn lead to further reform.

ICRIs and NHRIs may also have the mandate to receive complaints on children’s rights issues. This mandate allows ICRIs and NHRIs to identify the need for (additional) legislative reform and/or better implementation of domestic legislation.

The ability to handle complaints concerning the full spectrum of children’s rights requires a broad mandate to review domestic legislation and in light of the CRC and related international instruments (UNICEF 2012).
These institutions should be able to welcome complaints filed directly by children. According to the CRC Committee children should have access to an ombudsman or a person of a comparable role in all children’s institutions, including schools and day-care centres, to voice their complaints. Children should know who these persons are and how to access them (CRC GC 12, para. 46).

Data collection and evaluation

The collection of sufficient and reliable disaggregated data on children enables the government and other stakeholders to identify problems concerning the implementation of children’s rights legislation. This is an essential part of follow up of legislative reform, which could give reason for further legislative reform (specifically if a State follows method 1 and/or 3 and incrementally implements children’s rights in domestic legislation).
Data collection needs to be coordinated throughout the jurisdiction, ensuring nationally applicable indicators to measure the implementation of the legislation under consideration and allow for comparison between groups over time.
States Parties should build their own data collection and management systems, as part of their own responsibility to monitor and evaluate legislation, policies and practice.
States Parties should collaborate with appropriate research institutes and strive to build a complete picture of progress towards implementation, with qualitative as well as quantitative studies (CRC GC 5, para. 48).
The CRC Committee, under its reporting guidelines for periodic reports, calls for detailed disaggregated statistical and other information covering all areas of the CRC, including on the implementation of legislation.
Once legislative reforms are implemented, ongoing monitoring and evaluation are necessary to assess their effectiveness and identify areas for improvement.
Data collection enables policymakers to track progress towards achieving legislative objectives, measure the impact of interventions, and identify any unintended consequences.
- By systematically collecting data over time, policymakers can make informed decisions about adjusting policies or allocating resources to ensure better outcomes for children.
States Parties must consider the publication of comprehensive reports on the implementation of legislation, informing the public of the impact the law has on children’s rights.
Wide dissemination and debate of such reports, including in parliament, can provide a basis for broad public engagement.
Translations, including child-friendly versions, are essential for engaging children and minority groups in the process.

Role of data in legislative reform

The CRC Committee assumes that data and research, including research conducted with and by children, should inform legislation, policy and practice (CRC GC 5).
The data is useful for defining future targets for the entire children’s rights agenda of a country.
Data acts as evidence which enables a State Party to align its legislative reform objectives with the actual needs of children, especially the most vulnerable.
Therefore, data should be defined and collected to support evidence-based legislative reform processes.
- E.g.: By demonstrating the inverse linkages between secondary school completion and child marriage, arguments can be made for guaranteeing the right to secondary education as a means to ending child marriage.
The UNICEF’s Global guide on improving legislative frameworks to protect children from online sexual exploitation and abuse provides a Checklist of minimum and recommended standards for evidence-based legislation.

Collection of data to evaluate the impact of the legislative reform

Impact evaluations should identify for whom and in what ways the reform has been successful.

Step 1: Planning data collection and analysis

Determine the purpose of the evaluation and the key evaluation questions.
Once the purpose of the evaluation is clear, agree on a small number of key high-level evaluation questions (maximum 10), ideally with input from key stakeholders.
Determine to what extent existing data can be used.
Draw on different types of indicators (i.e., inputs, outputs, outcomes, impacts) to reflect key results.
Check whether baseline data is available for the selected indicators, as well as the socio-demographic and other relevant characteristics of the study population.
If baseline data is unavailable, additional data will need to be collected to reconstruct baselines.
Identify and address important gaps in the data.
Use a range of feasible data collection and analysis methods.

Step 2: Ensuring good data management

Develop effective processes for data management, including consistently and effectively collecting, recording, storing, cleaning, transferring, and presenting data, as well as making data accessible for verification and use by others.
Ensure data meets quality standards, including validity, reliability, completeness, precision, integrity and timeliness.

Step 3: Ensuring quality in data collection

Make the sampling strategy explicit.
- Define the population of interest from which to draw the sample and choose a sampling strategy (e.g.: probability, purposive, convenience).
Address dropouts and refusals, to avoid bias in the data collection.

Source and for more information: UNICEF, Overview: Data Collection and Analysis Methods in Impact Evaluation (2014)

Lundy et al for UNICEF UK also developed the below analytical framework to study the legal implementation of the CRC in 12 States:

Lundy etal analytical framework — Source: Lundy et al. (2012)