Child Rights Connect

Who we are

Child Rights Connect is an independent, non-profit association of about 90 national, regional and international non-governmental and civil society organisations, networks and coalitions. Its membership has a worldwide reach with children’s rights defenders in over 150 countries. 

The organisation consists of a General Assembly, an Executive Committee (ExCo) that is elected by the General Assembly, and a Secretariat. Under the guidance of ExCo, and in accordance with the decisions of the ExCo and the General Assembly, the Secretariat is entrusted with the implementation of the organisation’s Strategic Plan as well as its operational and financial management. The organisation was initially set up in 1983 as the Ad Hoc NGO Group for the drafting of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to ensure that the perspectives of civil society were taken into account in the preparation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Since then, it works to connect civil society organisations, which have a firsthand perspective on the realities of children, with the UN Human Rights System.

Child Rights Connect promotes children’s rights throughout the UN Human Rights System. This includes monitoring human rights developments at the UN which may have an impact on children’s rights and coordinating children’s rights defenders around common advocacy activities on key priority issues at the UN Human Rights Council. It also provides children’s rights defenders with capacitybuilding and technical assistance to help them better promote and monitor the implementation of the CRC in their respective countries, through engagement with UN human rights mechanisms including the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

The Secretariat of the organisation is based in Geneva, Switzerland.