Needing need to get access to the law for children and adolescents in Germany
Needing need to get access to the law for children and adolescents in Germany
According to a joint study by the German Children's Aid Plant and the German Institute for Human Rights,Germany has considerable catching up to do with effective access to the law for children and adolescents. On the tenth anniversary of the entry into force of the additional protocol for the UN Convention on the Rights of Children, which regulates an individual complaint procedure, the two organizations indicate the numerous barriers with which children and adolescents are confronted with their rights.
According to surveys, children want to be better heard, informed and respected. The German children's aid work emphasizes that politics and society have to take this seriously and strive for a nationwide implementation in order to guarantee all children and adolescents in Germany the unrestricted access to law.
Germany has ratified the additional protocol for the UN Convention on the Rights of Children, which enables children to submit complaints about violations of their rights to the UN Committee for the rights of the child. However, the domestic legal process must be generally exhausted beforehand. The additional protocol came into force on April 14, 2014
Claudia Kittel, head of the monitoring office UN Convention on the Rights of Children of the German Institute for Human Rights, emphasizes that Germany failed to implement the specifications of the protocol and to use the chance of strengthening children's rights through the individual complaint procedure in the German Justice System. It calls for a child -friendly design of the domestic legal process with the participation of children and adolescents.
An individual complaint within the framework of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Children includes a statement by the affected state if the UN Committee for the rights of the child determines that there is a human rights violation. Although these decisions are not legally binding, they have great effect due to their publication and authority of the committee and have already caused reforms to implement children's rights in many countries.
Since the additional protocol came into force in 2014, the UN Committee has made 148 decisions, which leads to a higher workload and illustrates the importance of national legal remedies to effective security to access to children and adolescents.
In summary, there is a clear catch -up requirement in Germany when it comes to effective access to the law for children and adolescents. Politics and society have to take the needs of children seriously and guarantee a comprehensive implementation in order to ensure full access to the right to all children and adolescents.