Source : European Committee of Social Rights, Council of Europe
Date : November 2019
Author : Professor Aoife Nolan, Professor of International Human Rights Law, University of Nottingham/Member, European Committee of Social Rights
Contents :
« LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
LIST OF BOXES AND TABLES
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
Child poverty in the Council of Europe is a major and wide-ranging problem. This is despite growing political, economic and civil society anxiety about the implications of child poverty for broader societal well-being and economic development. In addition to the moral case for eradicating child poverty, which is based on the huge human cost of allowing children to grow up suffering physical and psychological deprivations and unable to participate fully in society, society has a strong interest in eradicating child poverty due to the public costs (financial or otherwise) that result from it. Global concern with child poverty is demonstrated by the way in which efforts to address child disadvantage play a central role in relation to general anti-poverty strategies and efforts to advance human development. This is evidenced by the commitment to reduce by at least half the proportion of children ‘living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions’ in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, an Agenda which all Council of Europe member states have committed to implementing. Simultaneously, there is ever wider political, practitioner and advocate recognition that child poverty causes, results from, and constitutes a failure to secure children’s rights – and that child rights have a crucial potential role in shaping state responses to child poverty in Europe.
This report centres on the role of child rights in addressing child poverty in the Council of Europe (COE). In doing so, it addresses key standards related to addressing child poverty and social exclusion, with a particular focus on the COE legal instrument that is most closely focused on child poverty : the European Social Charter. It also identifies and discusses the work of COE human rights monitoring mechanisms that contribute to identifying issues of poverty and social exclusion and to the amelioration of such. In doing so, the report pays especial attention to the work of the European Committee of Social Rights. That body’s work, both in terms of its reporting and collective complaints functions, demonstrates the existing and potential role of the Charter as a framework for evaluating, critiquing and reconceptualising the measures (and the assumptions underpinning them) taken by COE states to combat child poverty. The report also highlights measures that positively contribute to the eradication of child poverty in a child rights-compliant way, drawing on COE member state practice.
1.CHILD POVERTY IN EUROPE AND HUMAN RIGHTS : AN OVERVIEW
1.1. Background and Context
1.2. Exploring the Inter-relationship between Child Rights and Child Poverty in
the Council of Europe
1.3. Conclusion
2. KEY COUNCIL OF EUROPE MONITORING MECHANISMS FROM A CHILD RIGHTS AND CHILD POVERTY PERSPECTIVE
2.1. Assessing COE Monitoring Mechanisms from a Child Rights and Child Poverty Perspective
2.2. Introducing the European Social Charter System
2.3. Addressing Child Poverty through the Reporting and Collective. Complaints Procedures
2.4. Conclusion
3. CHILD POVERTY AND THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL CHARTER
3.1. Children as Right-holders under the Charter
3.2. Identifying Charter Obligations of States Parties to Address Child Poverty
3.3. Conclusion
4. ADDRESSING CHILD POVERTY IN A EUROPEAN SOCIAL CHARTERCOMPLIANT WAY
4.1. Approaching Child Poverty Work in a Child-rights Compliant Way : Guidance
from Article 30
4.2. Using Bad Practice to Identify Best Practice
4.3. Using Good Practice as the Basis for Developing Best Practice
4.4. Conclusion
5. CONCLUSION : THE ROLE OF THE COE IN ADVANCING CHILD RIGHTS-COMPLIANT ANTI-POVERTY PRACTICE »