Your rights · chapter 4 of 9

Your voice counts

Decisions get made about you at school: which class you are put in, what happens after an incident, which rules everyone has to follow. One article of the CRC says you have the right to speak in those decisions, and that what you say has to count for something. It is two paragraphs long, and it is specific.

You have the right to be heard

Claim: If you can form a view, you have the right to say it in anything that affects you.
Instrument: CRC, article 12(1); CRC General Comment 12, paragraphs 20 and 21 (the committee's reading).
Quote: "the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child" (CRC).
What it means for you: The right belongs to "the child who is capable of forming his or her own views" (CRC), and the committee says a state cannot begin by assuming you cannot. The UN committee that reads the CRC says "it is not up to the child to first prove her or his capacity", and that "article 12 imposes no age limit on the right of the child" (GC 12, paras 20 and 21).
Where it often fails: The meeting about you happens and nobody tells you it is happening. Or you are asked in front of the people the problem is about, which is not the same as being asked freely.
What you can ask for: Ask to be in the room: "Can I be there when this is decided?" Ask when the decision will be made and who makes it.

"Due weight" is not "we listened"

Claim: Your view has to be taken seriously, not just collected.
Instrument: CRC, article 12(1), second half; CRC General Comment 12, paragraphs 28, 29, 30 and 45 (the committee's reading).
Quote: "being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child" (CRC).
What it means for you: "Due weight" has a meaning. The committee says "simply listening to the child is insufficient", and that "the views of the child have to be seriously considered" (GC 12, para 28). The committee says age is not the test on its own; how well you understand the matter, and how much the outcome hits your life, count too (GC 12, paras 29 and 30). The committee says you are also owed an answer: "the decision maker has to inform the child of the outcome" and "explain how her or his views were considered", so that your views are "not only heard as a formality, but are taken seriously" (GC 12, para 45).
Where it often fails: You are asked, the meeting ends, and you never learn what your answer changed. Nothing written down shows you spoke at all.
What you can ask for: Ask what happened to what you said: "What did you do with what I told you?" Ask for that before the decision is final, not weeks after.

It applies at school, including to decisions about you alone

Claim: The right to be heard covers school decisions, including ones about you personally.
Instrument: CRC, article 12(1) and 12(2); CRC General Comment 12, paragraphs 67, 105 and 113 (the committee's reading).
Quote: "the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child" (CRC).
What it means for you: The committee reads school discipline decisions as sitting inside that wording. It names mechanisms "to address discipline issues in schools (e.g. suspensions and expulsions)" (GC 12, para 67). On moving up to the next level of school, or being put in a track or stream, it says "the right of the child to be heard has to be assured"; where a student is excluded from school, "this decision must be subject to judicial review" (GC 12, para 113). That is the committee saying what states should set up; whether a court will look at a school decision where you live depends on your country. The article also says you can be heard "either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body" (CRC), so being heard does not always mean speaking for yourself. Who can speak for you, and whether someone can come with you, depends on the rules where you live.
Where it often fails: It is settled in a corridor in one minute, you hear the outcome from a friend, and the reason changes each time you ask. The committee is blunt about the setting: "continuing authoritarianism, discrimination, disrespect and violence" in many classrooms (GC 12, para 105).
What you can ask for: Ask for the decision and the reason in writing: "Can I have that in writing, with the reason?" Ask who decided and how it can be reviewed. Chapter 7, What you can do, has the routes if nobody answers.

Being asked is not the same as being heard

Claim: Participation that is only decoration does not satisfy article 12.
Instrument: CRC, article 12(1); CRC General Comment 12, paragraphs 132, 134 and 110.
Quote: The treaty: views must be "given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child" (CRC, article 12(1)). The committee, on what falls short of it: practices that "allow children to be heard, but fail to give their views due weight" (GC 12, para 132).
What it means for you: The committee urges states to "avoid tokenistic approaches, which limit children's expression of views" (GC 12, para 132). It backs real routes: "class councils, student councils and student representation on school boards", speaking on school policies and codes of behaviour, and it says those rights belong in law "rather than relying on the goodwill of authorities, schools and head teachers" (GC 12, para 110). Where students are consulted, "children must be informed as to how their views have been interpreted and used" (GC 12, para 134).
Where it often fails: The student council picks the theme for an event and never sees the discipline policy. A survey goes out and no result comes back. One student sits on a panel with eleven adults and is outvoted every time.
What you can ask for: Ask what the council can decide and what it can only advise on. After a survey or a meeting, ask for the results and for what changed because of them. Ask for both in writing, so the next student can point at them.

What this chapter does not say

A hearing is not a vote. Article 12 gives you no veto. What it gives is "due weight" (CRC). The committee says that where you can form your own view in a reasonable and independent way, the decision maker must consider it "as a significant factor in the settlement of the issue" (GC 12, para 44). It also says the decision maker has to tell you the outcome and how your view was considered (GC 12, para 45).
How you are heard depends on your country. Article 12(2) adds "in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law" (CRC), so the shape a hearing takes, and whether you can insist on one in a local court, varies.
Article 12 is about people under 18. The CRC covers "every human being below the age of eighteen years" (CRC, article 1), or younger where the law makes you an adult sooner. The "no age limit" above means there is no youngest age, not that the right runs past 18.
General Comment 12 is the committee's reading of article 12, not a second treaty. It is how the UN body that monitors the CRC says the article should work. The binding words are the article's.
You do not have to speak. "Expressing views is a choice for the child, not an obligation" (GC 12, para 16), and "the child must not be manipulated or subjected to undue influence or pressure" (GC 12, para 22). Choosing not to speak this time does not give up the right the next time a decision affects you. The decision in front of you may still be made without your view.
A treaty binds the states that joined it, not your head teacher personally. Whether the article can be used directly where you live depends on the country. The United States signed the CRC in 1995 but has not ratified it, so it is not bound by it (UN Treaty Collection, status as at 21 October 2026); chapter 8, If you are in the United States, covers what applies there. Chapter 6, What your country promised, explains how to read your country's card in the Atlas.

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.