ARTICLE 1

Be recognised
A child is recognised as a person under the age of 18, unless national laws
recognise an earlier age of majority.

ARTICLE 2

Non-discrimination
All rights apply to all children without exception. It is the State’s obligation to
protect children from any form of discrimination and to take positive action to
promote their rights.

ARTICLE 3

Adequate care
A child is recognised as a person under the age of 18, unless national laws
recognise an earlier age of majority.

ARTICLE 4

Implementation of these rights

The State must do all it can to implement the rights conttained in the Convention.
 ARTICLE 5

Parental guidance
The State must respect the rights and responsibilities
of parents and the extended family to provide guidance for the child that is
appropriate to her or his evolving capacities.

ARTICLE 6

Life
Every child has the inherent right to life, and the State has an obligation to
ensure the child’s survival and development.

ARTICLE 7

A name and nationality

The child has the right to a name at birth. The child also has the right to acquire a
nationality and, as far as possible, to know his or her parents and be cared for by
them.

ARTICLE 8

Identity protection
 The State has an obligation to protect and, if necessary, re-establish basic
aspects of
the child’s identity. This includes name, nationality and family ties.

ARTICLE 9

Live with their parents

The child has a right to live with his or her parents unless this is deemed
incompatible with the child’s best interests. The child also has the right to
maintain contact with both parents if separated from one or both.

ARTICLE 10

Family reunification
Children and their parents have the right to leave any country and to enter their
own for purposes of reunion or the maintenance of the child-parent relationship.

ARTICLE 11

Freedom from kidnapping

The State has an obligation to prevent and remedy the kidnapping or retention
abroad of children by a parent or third party.

ARTICLE 12
 Freedom of opinion
The child has the right to express his or her opinion freely and to have that
opinion taken into account in any matter or procedure affecting the child.

ARTICLE 13

Freedom of expression
The child has the right to express his or her views, obtain information and make
ideas or information known, regardless of frontiers.

ARTICLE 14

Freedom of thought
The State shall respect the child’s right to freedom of thought, conscience and
religion, subject to appropriate parental guidance.

ARTICLE 15

Freedom of association
Children have a right to meet with others, and to join or form associations.

ARTICLE 16
 Protection of privacy
Children have the right to protection from interference with their privacy, family,
home and correspondence, and to protection from libel or slander.

ARTICLE 17

Access information
The State shall ensure the accessibility to children of information and material
from a diversity of sources, and it shall encourage the mass media to
disseminate information that is of social and cultural benefit to the child, and take
steps to protect him or her from harmful materials.

ARTICLE 18

Be raised by their parents

Parents have joint primary responsibility for raising the child, and the State shall
support them in this. The State shall provide parents with appropriate childrearing
assistance.

ARTICLE 19

Freedom from abuse

The State shall protect the child from all forms of maltreatment by parents or
others responsible for the child’s care and shall establish appropriate social
programmes for the prevention of abuse and the treatment of victims.
 ARTICLE 20

Alternative care
The State is obliged to provide special protection for a child deprived of the family
environment and to ensure that appropriate alternative family care or institutional
placement is available in such cases. Efforts to meet this obligation shall pay due
regard to the child’s cultural background.

ARTICLE 21

Safe adoption
In countries where adoption in recognised and/or allowed, it shall be carried out
only in the best interests of the child, and then only with the authorisation of
competent authorities and safeguards for the child.

ARTICLE 22

Refugee protection
Special protection shall be granted to a refugee child or to a child seeking
refugee status. It is the State’s obligation to cooperate with competent
organisations that provide such protection and assistance.

ARTICLE 23
 Special disability care
A disabled child has the right to special care, education and training to help him
or her enjoy a full and decent life in dignity and achieve the greatest degree of
self-reliance and social integration possible.

ARTICLE 24

Health services
The child has a right to the highest standard of health and medical care
attainable. States shall place special emphasis on the reduction of infant and
child mortality and on the provision of primary and preventive healthcare and of
public health education.

ARTICLE 25

Review of placement
A child who is placed by the State for reasons of care, protection or treatment is
entitled to have that placement evaluated regularly.

ARTICLE 26

Social security
The child has the right to benefit from social security, including social insurance.
 ARTICLE 27

A standard of living
Every child has the right to a standard of living adequate for his or her physical,
mental, spiritual, moral and social development.

ARTICLE 28

An education
The child has a right to education, and the State’s duty is to ensure that primary
education is free and compulsory.

ARTICLE 29

Personal development
Education shall aim at developing the child’s personality, talents and mental and
physical abilities to the fullest extent.

ARTICLE 30

Their own culture

Children of minority communities and indigenous populations have the right to
enjoy their own culture and to practise their own religion and language.
 ARTICLE 31

Leisure and play

The child has the right to leisure, play and participation in cultural and artistic
activities.

ARTICLE 32

Freedom from child labour

The child has the right to be protected from work that threatens his or her health,
education or development. The State shall set minimum ages for employment
and shall regulate working conditions.

ARTICLE 33

Protection from drug abuse

Children have the right to protection from the use of narcotic and psychotropic
drugs, and from being involved in their production or distribution.

ARTICLE 34

Freedom from sexual exploitation

 The State shall protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse, including
prostitution and involvement in pornography.

ARTICLE 35

Freedom from human trafficking

It is the State’s obligation to make every effort to prevent the sale, trafficking and
abduction of children.

ARTICLE 36

Freedom from exploitation

The child has the right to protection from all forms of exploitation prejudicial to
any aspects of the child’s welfare not covered in articles 32–35.

ARTICLE 37

Freedom from torture

No child shall be subjected to torture, cruel treatment or punishment, unlawful
arrest or deprivation of liberty. Both capital punishment and life imprisonment
without the possibility for release are prohibited for offences committed by
persons below age 18.

ARTICLE 38
 Protection from conflict
States shall take all feasible measures to ensure that children under 15 years of
age have no direct part in hostilities. No child below 15 shall be recruited into the
armed forces.

ARTICLE 39

Rehabilitative care
The State has an obligation to ensure that child victims of armed conflicts,
torture, maltreatment or exploitation receive appropriate treatment for their
recovery and social reintegration.

ARTICLE 40

Juvenile justice
A child in conflict with the law has the right to treatment that promotes the child’s
sense of dignity and worth, takes the child’s age into account and aims at his or
her defence

ARTICLE 41

Relevant higher national standards

If a country has laws and standards that go further than the present Convention,
then the country must keep these laws.
 ARTICLE 42

Knowledge of these rights

Governments must actively work to make sure children and adults know about
the Convention.

ARTICLE 43 - 54

Input from adults and governments

Articles 43 - 54 are about how adults and governments must work together to
make sure all children can enjoy all their rights.