Background

Plan International Hong Kong has been actively engaged in advocating a strengthened system approach to address the complex causes and consequences of children’s rights violations, and translate our knowledge into action to ensure no child is left behind in the protection of their best interests.

Child Rights Impact Assessment, which can be applied at both the policy and community practice level, would be conducive to ensuring that the enforcement of any proposed or existing law, policy or decision does not violate the best interests of the child. The assessment tool requires relevant stakeholders to identify every positive and negative impact any decision may have on children and stipulate mitigations where negative impacts are identified. This is particularly important for the protection of vulnerable children in our community.

Our actions

Plan International Hong Kong has commissioned The University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Comparative and Public Law (CCPL) to conduct the captioned project as a first step in the longer-term process to engage officials and different sectors through dialogues and awareness building on the advantages of Child Rights Impact Assessment, to safeguard children’s rights as undergirded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

The first phase of the project comprises:

  1. Research on overseas models and experiences on Child Rights Impact Assessment
  2. International Conference on ‘Safeguarding Children’s Best Interests: Translating policies into local practices —Combating Violence against Children’
Research Report

First phase of the research looks into overseas models and experience on Child Rights Impact Assessment and explores how Hong Kong can apply the Child Rights Impact Assessment Framework in policy-making and frontline service. Please stay tuned to the details of the full research report.

Safeguarding Children’s Best Interests Conference

Plan International Hong Kong and The University of Hong Kong’s Centre for Comparative and Public Law (CCPL) jointly organised an international conference on ‘Safeguarding Children’s Best Interests: Translating policies into local practices —combating violence against children’ on 8 September 2018. The conference aimed to provide a platform for local policymakers, frontline practitioners and professionals from different sectors to convene and exchange ideas and devise a way out on safeguarding children’s best interests by incorporating Child Rights Impact Assessment into policy-making and frontline service into the local context inspired by international best practices.

For more details of the conference, please refer to the event website or press release.

Press Release and Media Reports