Commissioner Connolly has released her annual series of reports on South Australia’s progress toward meeting recommendations made by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child today. Although progress in some areas still has some way to go, COVID-19 has not stopped all progress being made in children’s health and wellbeing.Released to coincide with International Human Rights Day (10 December) the progress reports cover seven child rights issues highlighted by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child as areas of concern in relation to Australian children and young people; child health, child justice, child protection, education, physical punishment, disability, and the environment (included this year for the first time).
The reports overall indicate some indicate slow but positive progress overall and show that if South Australia was to put a little more effort into the following three child rights areas, the state would begin to see real change:
- raising the criminal age from 10 to 14 years;
- stemming the flow of children being excluded from school (particularly children living with disability); and
- comprehensive rollout of the State’s Mental Health Plan.
Read the full media release here
Download the suite of CCYP 2021 Child Rights Progress Reports here
