Engaging in children’s rights legislative reform is an effective way to raise awareness about children’s rights in general, and children’s status as rights holders in particular, and therefore to promote the implementation of the CRC.

In this respect, children’s rights legislative reform is an opportunity to:

• Trigger debates on children’s rights.
  • Starting a process of comprehensive reform stimulates discussion about CRC implementation in the country. It can also challenge existing attitudes towards children and their rights.
• Raise public and political support for further children’s rights legislative reform and related implementation measures.
  • Campaigns to raise awareness of efforts to incorporate the CRC into legislation can create a favourable environment for further children’s rights legislative reform, and even generate popular demand for additional reforms.
  • This would be particularly helpful in States Parties where support is (relatively) weak. The monitoring process that should be undertaken during legislative reform can also serve as justification for change and the promotion of further reforms. In fact, the monitoring process and impact of past or current children’s rights legislative reform can build general consensus in favour of children’s rights.
    • To provide the objective analysis needed to validate reforms, monitoring responsibility should be vested in an authority which is independent of political activity and specifically designated as an advocate for children and their rights.

• Promote the participation of groups that have traditionally been excluded or have not been provided with a significant role in previous legislative reform processes, in particular children and institutions and/or organisations working on children’s rights, and/or certain minority groups or indigenous communities.
• Raise public and political awareness on children’s rights and their importance.
  • The information provided to the general public during the legislative reform process can be a key component of a broader effort to increase overall awareness of children’s rights, hence furthering Article 42 CRC.