Some of children’s human rights ‘overturned’ during pandemic

Some of children’s human rights have been temporarily overturned amid the response to the coronavirus pandemic, Scotland’s Children’s Commissioner has warned.

Bruce Adamson said youngsters have been left with no voice in the creation of policies which directly affect them, such as the cancellation of exams or the change to a new method of assessment.

He also said that the impact of emergency legislation, created at speed during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, on vulnerable groups of children is impossible to properly assess due to serious gaps in data collection.

Mr Adamson said: “The pandemic has revealed that we’ve not made as much progress on children’s rights as we would like to think in Scotland.

“Under pressure, too many of our systems and structures reverted to treating children as passive recipients of charity and welfare rather than active agents in their own lives and valued members of our communities.”

He added: “The Scottish and UK Governments responded to the pandemic by enacting emergency legislation intended to protect public health; this also impacted significantly on a wide range of children’s human rights.

“Some of these measures temporarily overturned and/ or bypassed human rights protections for children that had been long established in Scots law.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Children’s rights and wellbeing matter now more than ever, and the Bill to incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law will be delivered within this parliamentary session as planned.

“A children’s rights approach is being embedded into our response to Covid-19 and our approach to recovery and renewal, with Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessments published for the Coronavirus (Scotland) Act and the Coronavirus (Scotland) (No2) Act.”