The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) celebrates World Children’s Day on 20 November every year. It marks the day that the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989.
The UNCRC is an international statement of children’s rights, which has been signed and ratified by 196 countries around the world. It contains 54 articles which span all aspects of children’s lives, including non-discrimination, the best interests of the child and the right to be heard. It recognises education as a basic right, and is one of the key international documents that forms the basis of all Agency work.
This year’s World Children’s Day theme is ‘Inclusion, For Every Child’. It aims to empower children to call for a better future and a more equal, inclusive world. To encourage people to listen to children’s ideas and demands, UNICEF has created a TikTok challenge, #IFeltIncluded, alongside a number of actions to help governments, businesses, schools, parents and young people get involved. These include children ‘taking over’ roles usually held by adults and encouraging people to show support for children’s rights by ‘turning the world blue’ – wearing blue, changing social media profiles, or even lighting buildings blue.
More information on World Children’s Day is available on the UNICEF website.