Why Awareness of Children’s Rights Matters

National Children’s Week 2025 reminds us that awareness is the first step toward justice. To protect children’s rights we first need to understand where and how they are being violated.

Ignorance is a tool of injustice. Discrimination cannot exist without a lack of knowledge of the circumstances in which it arises. Therefore, in order to effect any sort of social and political change, there must first be a change in the public’s awareness.

This week (19th-27th October) marks the National Children’s Week 2025 and highlights the importance of awareness in this year’s theme – “Everyone should know about Children’s Rights”. It is based on Article 42 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which insists that children’s rights should be widely understood by everyone.

The idea of ‘rights’, particularly those enjoyed by children, is frequently thought of as an abstract notion; most people know vaguely that they exist as concepts. But this is where the problem emerges. A general knowledge of the existence of rights does not correspond to an awareness of their relevance and application to issues in one’s own community. The association of rights with international law also contributes to this disconnect.

It is crucial that the perception of rights grows beyond this isolated concept and more towards recognising them as a fundamental basis for practical change. This is where raising awareness steps in – by highlighting rights-based issues of injustice, and importantly, linking them to opportunities for change.

See, for example, the harm experienced by children in detention undergoing isolation practices. These practices constitute serious contraventions of these children’s rights under Australia’s international legal obligations, but there is a deep lack of public awareness of this issue. Aside from the occasional media scandal of a child restrained in a spit hood, or being locked in solitary confinement for hundreds of days, this outrage quickly fades into the background of the next news cycle. Further, this lack of awareness is compounded by the persistence of stigmas and stereotypes surrounding children in detention, which are further reinforced by ‘tough on crime’ political approaches to justice.

To ensure accountability and transformation of youth detention practices in Australia, the public must be aware of the specific injustices and harm experienced by juvenile detainees, and how this translates to violations of their rights. The punitive practices that these children are subjected to go directly against Australia’s obligations to uphold children’s rights, but the lack of public awareness of the prevalence of these measures limits the extent of social change.

This needs to change. Children in detention deserve our attention and our support. Children’s rights, especially in detention, must remain at the forefront of the public consciousness.