By Freja, 13, from Canada
Editorial note: The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights recently issued a call for submissions from children to inform the upcoming process to consider and draft a new Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child to strengthen the right to education under international law. More details can be found here.
Last year, in my role as a child advisor for Child Rights Connect, I and my fellow child advisor Catarina, from Brazil, were fortunate enough to travel to Geneva to advocate for a new protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to make free pre-primary and secondary education available to all children.
We moderated and spoke at the side event and participated in the negotiations of the Human Rights Council resolution to move forward on the optional protocol. This provided me with the opportunity to share my personal experience as a child and explain why children’s participation in this process is essential.
As I said in my statement last year, research shows that the period from birth to five years old is one of remarkable brain development in children. When a child is offered the opportunity of early childhood education at a developmental age when the curiosity to learn, discover, and experience new things is strongest, neuroscience has shown that this can provide a strong foundation for later learning, development, and behaviors, enabling them to reach their full potential as adult.
I’m from a country where free education is offered at both pre-primary and secondary levels. What I learned in pre-primary has developed my social skills, life skills, and resilience, setting me on a path of successful learning.
I’m now in secondary school and the subjects I am taking are enhancing my interests, engaging me, and assisting me in decisions that will positively affect my future.
The experience of traveling to Geneva, speaking at the UN, and meeting a panel of ambassadors, was amazing. I was treated like a peer, and felt like an ambassador myself.
This experience of the UN has shaped what I think I want to do in my life: I want to go into law. Maybe even human rights law?
When visiting the permanent missions of Canada and Brazil, and all the wonderful people who are truly interested in what I had to say, it made me feel like my opinions mattered. When my fellow members of the Children’s Advisory Team and I wrote a letter, and met and delivered it to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ people, I felt that I was really a part of something big. I felt heard, and I felt that I was taken seriously.
Having my mom and my supporting adult, Kirsty, there was important as well—and the support from Child Rights Connect.
The Human Rights Council resolution adopted in July 2024 is historic in that for the first time it specifically asks for child participation in the development of a new optional protocol.
Children should be a part of the consultation process on decisions that affect them, whether it’s taking part in the negotiations in person—like we were able to do last year—or making submissions by video, or writing, or multimedia art. Our perspective as children can open the minds of decision makers, giving them unique insight into what children think is important; introducing a fresh-eyed focus on the future of the world.
After all, you were all kids once. Please, take a moment to remember back to that time when you were kids. A time of innocence, play, and honesty. How refreshing a thought in this current climate of uncertainty. If someone had given you a voice then, how do you think it would have affected change today?
We are the future presidents, prime ministers, and decision-makers. Give us the chance to show you what we can do.
