Council of Europe

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects everyone’s private and family life, their home and their correspondence, from state interference. This right underlines the importance of protecting the family unit, the social unit that nurtures most children to adulthood. 

Article 16 of the Revised European Social Charter ensures that all members of the family, including children, as a fundamental unit of society, have the right to appropriate social, legal and economic protection to ensure its full development.

Other Council of Europe conventions, such as the European Convention on the Adoption of Children (Revised), Convention on Contact concerning Children and European Convention on the Exercise of Children’s Rights, deal with children’s rights in family and alternative care.

The Recommendation CM/Rec(2011)12 on children’s rights and social services friendly to children and families addresses children’s rights in social services planning, delivery and evaluation. Its aim is “to ensure that social services are delivered upon individual assessment of the child’s needs and circumstances and take into account the child’s own views, considering his or her age, level of maturity and capacity”. The Recommendation defines “child-friendly social services” as “social services that respect, protect and fulfil the rights of every child, including the right to provision, participation and protection and the principles of the best interest of the child”.

The Recommendation CM/Rec(2010)2 on deinstitutionalisation and community living of children with disabilities calls on member states to take appropriate legislative, administrative and other measures to replace institutional care with community-based services within a reasonable timeframe and through a comprehensive approach. It states that all children with disabilities should live with their own family unless in exceptional circumstances, and calls for phasing out new institutional placements and replacing them with a comprehensive network of community provision.

Discover your rights! is a booklet addressed to children and young people in alternative care which was produced in co-operation with SOS Children’s Villages International. It uses comics, stories and informative texts to support children and young people in care to learn about their rights and learn how to take on an active role in their own care process. 

Another booklet – Securing Children’s Rights – is addressed at professionals working with children in alternative care. The publications, in several languages, are available on the website of the Council of Europe. 

United Nations

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises the family to be “the natural and fundamental group unit of society… entitled to protection by society and the State” (Article 16). The Declaration also protects the family from arbitrary interference, and includes the “right to marry and to found a family”. 
The Declaration does not define ‘family’, and the term now refers to many different combinations of children and adults besides the traditional nuclear family, which consists of two parents and their genetic children.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child gives even greater emphasis to the importance of the family, declaring in its Preamble that it is not only the fundamental group of society, but also the “natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children”. The Convention recommends the family environment for “the full and harmonious development” of the child’s personality.