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Paul Stephenson. © Peter Williams/WCC

Paul Stephenson. © Peter Williams/WCC

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The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the most rapidly ratified human rights convention in history, explains Paul Stephenson, World Vision International’s senior director for child development and rights.

“There was almost universal endorsement for a convention that protected the rights of the most vulnerable citizens in any country – its children,” he says.

World Vision is not affiliated with any particular church but it is a faith-based non-governmental organization (NGO) that works in a nonsectarian manner.

“We have had a long history on engaging around child rights issues,” notes Stephenson, who says World Vision has board-level endorsement on the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Stephenson attended the first seminar after the World Council of Churches (WCC) and UNICEF signed an agreement to work together, held ahead of the anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 20 November.

“We have a lot of experience on violations of the rights of the child,” he explains, noting that World Vision also works with communities at the grassroots level on child rights awareness.

World Vision also works on local accountability mechanisms relating to how rights are being violated and on ensuring the improvement of basic services as well as improving access to those services.

“We work with communities in a variety of different ways - empowering, informing, educating and reporting on child rights.”

Although World Vision is not a member of the WCC it works closely with WCC member churches in number of different arenas.

He noted, “The reason we are participating is that such a partnership provides an opportunity for scale — certainly with an umbrella group like the World Council of Churches and UNICEF providing their heft.

“So for us to be able to provide our learning, our experience on the ground, engagement with communities, resources we have developed, to see those being utilized by churches and by other groups to scale up the work and also learning from each other — enables us to reach a critical mass,” he says.

WCC and UNICEF start implementing agreement giving a “Voice For Children’s Rights” (WCC press release of 26 November 2015)

WCC child rights engagement