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# Complaints
Government to sign UN protocol that gives Irish children more rights
The move was welcomed by the Children’s Rights Alliance.
THE GOVERNMENT HAS been praised for agreeing to sign a United Nations protocol that’s aimed at further enhancing the rights of children in Ireland.
Minister James Reilly announced that the Government has approved his proposal that the Third Optional Protocl to the UNCRC be signed and ratified.
This protocol provides for communication between citizens and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
Essentially, it gives children in Ireland a more direct way to have their complaints about violations of their rights heard by a United Nations Committee.
Reilly said:
the Protocol will reinforce and complement national mechanisms allowing children to submit complaints for violations of their rights. It is right that children in Ireland should have the same facility to access this new UNCRC rights mechanism as their counterparts in other participating countries.
Tanya Ward, Chief Executive of the Children’s Rights Alliance said:
This new procedure will enable children and their representatives to complain to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child when their rights have been breached.
Now children will have somewhere to turn when our national bodies and courts cannot help them.
Ireland is one of the first countries in the world to sign and ratify the Third Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. States that have already ratified this Protocol include: Albania, Belgium, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Gabon, Germany, Montenegro, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Thailand, said the CRA.
Read: A Week in the Family Court: 6,500 children are in care – here are some of their stories>
