Your rights · chapter 7 of 9

What you can do

The nearest place a school problem can be fixed is the school itself. So this chapter starts at the nearest door and works outward, and the nearest door gets the most room. The routes further out are real, but they are slow, most of them cannot order anyone to do anything, and some of them do not exist where you live. If you are in danger right now, this is not the page you need: chapter 9, Help lines everywhere, is.

Start inside your school

Roughly, in order, and you can stop as soon as it works:

The nearest adult who is not the problem. A form tutor, a year head, a counsellor, a coach, a librarian. Say what happened and what you want to change. Ask them to write it down.
The named person. Many schools have one person for safeguarding, wellbeing or discipline. Ask whether yours does and who it is by name, and ask it in an email so the answer exists on paper.
In writing, with a date. Short email, plain facts, one ask, and a closing line asking for a reply by a named day. Keep the sent copy.
Above them. If the answer is no, or there is no answer, ask who is above that person and what the appeal route is. Ask for the deadline for appealing, because appeals often have one.
Outside the school building. The governing board, the school trust, the district or local education office, the inspectorate. Which of these exists depends entirely on your country, so ask the school to name the one that covers it.

Claim: You are entitled to be heard about decisions that affect you, and the school is where that starts.
Instrument: CRC, article 12(1) and 12(2); CRC General Comment 12 (2009), paragraphs 46, 47 and 113 (the committee's reading).
Quote: "the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child" (CRC, art. 12(1)). "the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings" (CRC, art. 12(2)).
What it means for you: Chapter 4, Your voice counts, is the long version of this right; here it is only the door. Being heard is not the same as getting your way. It means your side goes on the record before a decision is made, and it applies hardest where the decision bites: the UN committee that reads the CRC says that in disciplinary matters "the right of the child to be heard has to be fully respected" (CRC General Comment 12, para 113). The same committee says schools should have someone you can take a complaint to, and that "Children should know who these persons are and how to access them" (GC 12, para 46). A route you have never been told about is not a route.
Where it often fails: There is no written policy, or nobody can find it. The person who decides the complaint is the person you are complaining about. You are told it will be looked into, and that is the last you hear. Nothing is written down, so a month later there is nothing to point at. And a real fear runs under all of it: that complaining makes school worse. General Comment 12 says complaints procedures have to make children confident that "using them will not expose them to risk of violence or punishment" (GC 12, para 47). That is the standard. It is not a promise that your school meets it. You know best what is safe where you are, and you do not have to weigh it alone: an adult you trust can help.
What you can ask for: Ask for the written complaints policy and the written discipline policy. Ask who the named person is. Ask for an answer in writing, by a date. Ask what the appeal route is and what its deadline is. Ask whether what you say stays between you and that person, and what would make them have to tell someone else, before you say it. Ask one adult you trust to come with you and take notes.

Keep a record, starting today

Every route in this chapter asks for a record, and the record has to start before anyone needs it. A record rebuilt from memory six months later is a much weaker one.

Write it the same day, while you still have the words:

The date and the time. Both.
What was said. As close to the actual words as you can manage. Quote marks around what you are sure of, and a note where you are paraphrasing.
Who was there. Names if you know them, roles if you do not.
What you asked for, and what you were told.
Anything already in writing. Emails, letters, messages, the policy itself, a report card, a timetable, a note from a doctor if you have one. Save copies somewhere the school cannot reach: your own email, your own phone, a printout at home.

Two honest limits. A record is not proof; it is your account, and it is worth having for exactly that reason. And the law on recording another person, by audio or video, varies enormously between countries and can be a criminal matter. This guide cannot tell you what it is where you live, so find that out before you consider it.

One more thing, if your case ever becomes public: keep other students' names out of anything you share. Their story is not yours to tell.

Your country's human rights institution

Claim: Many countries have an official human rights body that sits outside the school system, and some of them can take a complaint from you.
Instrument: Not a treaty: the Paris Principles are standards annexed to UN General Assembly resolution 48/134 (1993), read here with the committee's CRC General Comment 2 (2002), paragraphs 13 and 15.
Quote: "A national institution may be authorized to hear and consider complaints" (Paris Principles, annex to A/RES/48/134).
What it means for you: Read that quote twice: "may be authorized". Some of these bodies investigate individual complaints, some only advise the government and publish reports. The UN committee that reads the CRC says they "must have the power to consider individual complaints and petitions", "including those submitted on behalf of or directly by children", and that they "should be geographically and physically accessible to all children" (CRC General Comment 2, paras 13 and 15). That is what such a body should be. It is not evidence about the one in your country.
Where it often fails: Not every country has one. GANHRI, the global association of these institutions, says "GANHRI is comprised of 119 members: 91 ‘A’ status NHRIs", with the other 28 at B status, meaning only partly compliant with the Paris Principles, on a chart the site dates 4 June 2026 (GANHRI membership). Even a strong institution may have no power to overturn what a school decided; it may be able to write, recommend and publish, and no more. Offices can be in the capital, slow, and set up for adults.
What you can ask for: Look for your country on the GANHRI list. It is a list of GANHRI's own members, so a country can have a body that is not on it: not finding yours is a reason to ask, not proof there is nobody. If it is there, write and ask three plain questions: do you take complaints directly from someone my age, what do you need from me, and what happens to my name. Ask before you send the details, not after.

A children's ombudsperson

Claim: Some countries have an independent office for children specifically, and where it exists it is a door outside the school that is built for children.
Instrument: CRC, article 1, for who counts as a child. For the office itself, not a treaty: the committee's CRC General Comment 2 (2002), paragraphs 5, 6 and 7, and CRC General Comment 12 (2009), paragraph 49.
Quote: "every State needs an independent human rights institution" (CRC General Comment 2, para 7).
What it means for you: The names differ: ombudsperson, ombudsman, children's commissioner, defensor, délégué. General Comment 12 asks states to "Establish independent human rights institutions, such as children’s ombudsmen or commissioners" (GC 12, para 49). Where the office exists it is set up for children, and it is meant to be independent of your school and of whoever runs it. Under the Convention a child is generally someone under 18, so if you are 18 or older, ask whether the office can still hear you. Whether it hears from young people directly is a question to put to it, and the asks below start there.
Where it often fails: "have been established in a growing number of States parties" (GC 2, para 6) is the committee's own wording, and a growing number is not all of them. The same text is blunt about the wider problem: "children’s access to organizations that may protect their rights is generally limited" (GC 2, para 5). Offices can be tiny, backed up for months, or able only to write letters.
What you can ask for: In Europe there is a list you can check yourself. The European Network of Ombudspersons for Children says it grew to "43 institutions in 33 countries within the Council of Europe" and that "Membership is limited to institutions in the 46 member states", the count dated 2026 on a page read on 2026-10-21 (ENOC members). That list covers Europe only, and only ENOC's own members, so an office can exist without being on it, and it cannot tell you anything about anywhere else; outside Europe, start from the GANHRI list above and ask whether there is a children's section. Then ask the office the same three questions: do you hear from young people directly, what can you actually do about a school, and what happens to my name.

A complaint to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child

Claim: A young person can complain to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, but only against a state that joined OP3-CRC, and only after their own country's remedies have run out.
Instrument: OP3-CRC, articles 1(3), 4(1), 4(2), 5(1), 7(e), 7(g), 7(h), 10(5) and 11(1); CRC, article 1, for who counts as a child.
Quote: "All available domestic remedies have not been exhausted" (OP3-CRC, art. 7(e)), listed there as a reason the Committee must rule a complaint inadmissible.
What it means for you: Three hard limits, all in the text. Your state must be a party: nothing is received "if it concerns a State that is not a party" (art. 1(3)), and 54 states were parties on the UN's own page when it was read, stamped "STATUS AS AT : 19-09-2026" (OP3-CRC status); chapter 6, What your country promised, has the card for yours. Domestic remedies come first, with one exception written into the same line: that is not the rule where the home route is "unreasonably prolonged or unlikely to bring effective relief" (art. 7(e)). And a complaint is inadmissible if "not submitted within one year after the exhaustion of domestic remedies" (art. 7(h)), unless you can show it was not possible to file within that time. At the end nobody is ordered to do anything: the Committee will "transmit its views on the communication, together with its recommendations, if any" (art. 10(5)), and the state "shall give due consideration" to them (art. 11(1)). Two more limits sit in the same text. The complaint must be about a right "set forth in" the Convention or one of its two earlier protocols (on the sale of children, and on children in armed conflict), if your state has joined it (art. 5(1)), and those rights are a child's, generally someone under 18 (CRC, art. 1), so if you are 18 or older now, ask whether what happened to you as a child can still be heard. And facts from before the protocol bound your state are ruled out unless they "continued after that date" (art. 7(g)).
Where it often fails: It is slow at every stage. Finishing your own country's system comes first, and OHCHR then says a case "may take months or even years before a complaint is registered" and that "the Committee’s decision may only be adopted several years after registration" (OHCHR, individual communications). Anonymity is not on offer: OHCHR says "The complainant may make a request that their identity be kept confidential", but the complaint cannot be anonymous and the decision is published. Two things in the treaty are on your side here, and they are worth knowing before you decide. Your name is not public by default: the identity of anyone concerned "shall not be revealed publicly without their express consent" (OP3-CRC, art. 4(2)). And states must take all appropriate steps to make sure people are "not subjected to any human rights violation, ill-treatment or intimidation" over a communication (art. 4(1)). Both are promises in a treaty rather than guarantees about the room you sit in, but the promise that your identity is revealed publicly only with your express consent is a real and specific one, and it is the opposite of what most people assume about complaining to the UN.
What you can ask for: Nothing here is a Monday step. Check chapter 6 for whether your state is a party. If it is, and the domestic routes are genuinely finished, you do not have to file alone: a complaint can be "submitted by or on behalf of" you (art. 5(1)), and a lawyer or an organisation that has taken one of these before can help. OHCHR notes that "A child-friendly version of the online form is available".

A letter to a UN Special Rapporteur

Claim: Anyone can send information to a UN expert. It can produce a letter to a government. It does not produce a remedy for you.
Instrument: Not a treaty: a Human Rights Council mandate, run under OHCHR's published procedure. The mandate closest to this guide is the Special Rapporteur on the right to education.
Quote: "Communications are letters sent by the Special Procedures to Governments and others" (OHCHR, What are Communications?).
What it means for you: The bar to send is low: OHCHR says the experts will not require ratification of any treaty "or that the alleged victim has exhausted domestic remedies". The ceiling sits on the same page: the procedure "is not a quasi-judicial procedure" and the experts "do not have power or authority to enforce their views or recommendations". The education mandate describes its own output as writing: "To the limit of its available resources", the Rapporteur "may accordingly write to the concerned government" (OHCHR, submissions to the Special Rapporteur on the right to education).
Where it often fails: A letter is the whole output. No compensation, no order, and no school place returned. Your name travels too: communications "will by default include the name(s) of the alleged victim(s)" when they go to the government, and the page makes no exception for age at that step. The letters are later published in a report with names in them, "except alleged victims under 18 years of age" and victims of sexual violence, "whose names are not published". Where there is a security concern the experts "may exceptionally decide" to withhold the victims' names, and only if the submission raises it. Read that as the exception it is worded as, not as a setting you can switch on.
What you can ask for: If you send anything, state in the submission whether you consent to your name going to the government and whether you consent to it appearing in the public report, and say plainly if there is a safety concern. The education mandate says the identity of the person submitting is, as a general rule, confidential and that "this information will be kept confidential", and that its letters "are confidential at an initial stage". That is how the office intends to work, not a promise nobody can break.

What this chapter does not say

This is information, not legal advice. No page here can tell you what your rights are in your own country's courts, or what to do about your own case.
Nothing here is a claim that any of these routes works. They exist. What they produce, and whether it changes anything, is not something this guide can promise you.
We cannot verify what exists where you live. That is why this chapter names the kind of body and then points you at the list: GANHRI for national institutions, ENOC for children's ombudspersons in Europe, chapter 6 for OP3. The first two are membership lists, so a body can exist without appearing on either.
Only one of the outside routes on this page was set up by a treaty. The complaint to the UN Committee was, because OP3-CRC is a treaty your state either joined or did not. The national institution and the children's ombudsperson rest on the Paris Principles and on General Comment 2, and neither of those is binding law: the Paris Principles are a standard the General Assembly endorsed, and a General Comment is the Committee's reading of the Convention rather than a second convention. So where this chapter says an institution "must" be able to do something, read it as the standard those bodies are measured against, not as a law your government broke by falling short of it. It is still worth quoting when you ask, because it is the UN committee's own description of what these offices should be able to do.
A court case is a different thing, and this guide does not cover it. Every route above sits outside the courts, and some of them exist precisely because going to court is out of reach.
Confidentiality is never total. Both UN routes publish something in the end, and every route above has a point at which an adult may have to pass information on. Ask where that point is before you speak, not after.
You do not have to be an adult to use these. General Comment 2 expects complaints "including those submitted on behalf of or directly by children" (GC 2, para 13). But one adult who will sit with you, read the form and chase the reply makes every route on this page easier.
If you are in danger now, none of this is the answer. Chapter 9, Help lines everywhere, is the page to open. A complaints procedure is for later.

How this chapter was checked

Every claim above was checked against the text it cites. Every quotation is the source's own words, under 15 words, and links to the text it came from.

Every claim checked: 2026-10-21
Approved by Bella: 2026-10-21

The texts this chapter was read against

This is information, not legal advice. If a line here is wrong, Correct this. Back to all 9 chapters, or see Methodology for how the checking works.