A Moment to Celebrate, Reflect and Empower
Universal Children’s Day is acknowledged on 20 November each year. This is a global reminder to celebrate children’s rights, wellbeing, and the role of quality education in shaping children’s futures. In 2024, we celebrate a significant milestone —100 years since the 1924 Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
The Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child is an international document adopted by the League of Nations in 1924. It was the first document to recognize the rights of children and the responsibilities of adults towards them.
Since the 1924 Geneva Declaration progress has been made regarding the wellbeing and protection of children, particularly in the health and education sectors, however there remains too many places where children’s rights are misunderstood, disregarded or denied.
Children’s rights are human rights. They are non-negotiable and universal.
One hundred years later, a renewed Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child 2024 has been created under the leadership of Professor Philip Jaffé from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.
Recognising additional challenges and issues that children face worldwide, such as climate change, exploitation and online abuse, the renewed Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child 2024 is a global call to action for governments, institutions, and individuals of the urgent need to ensure that every child has a safe and healthy environment where they can grow and thrive securely, and where all children’s voices, opinions, and right to be protected is honoured.
REAIE congratulates the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child for the initiative to renew the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, acknowledging that upholding children’s rights is the compass to a better world – today, tomorrow and into the future.
A Century of Children’s Rights is worth celebrating!
The Renewed Geneva Declaration for Children’s Rights
That all children of today and of future generations:
- live in conditions of dignity and wellbeing, out of poverty, and with the highest attainable standard of health,
- grow up in communities no longer affected by armed conflicts,
- be listened to and have their opinions count in all decisions affecting them, thus recognising their fundamental right to participate in shaping the communities they live in,
- flourish is a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment conducive to their survival, development and to the enjoyment of all their rights,
- benefit from a safe and empowering experience in the fast-evolving digital environment in which they can conserve their agency and be digitally literate to navigate securely,
- be protected from all forms of violence (physical, psychological, and sexual) in all settings, including in the home,
- have their best interests respected in all current and future biotechnological developments,
- access child-friendly systems of justice and commensurate remedies when their rights are violated
- are provided with free and inclusive early, primary, secondary, and vocational education with no discrimination,
- experience the positive uniqueness of childhood that every person could wish for himself, herself, or themselves.
