Thousands of children across the country have sent messages to the Prime Minister on cardboard and paper footprints, to mark the start of a year of action on children's rights.

The messages were hand delivered to Downing Street by children and young people this morning, marking the 20^th anniversary of the UK making a legally binding agreement with the United Nations to uphold the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Convention gives children everywhere a wide range of rights, including to: family support; education that helps them develop fully as individuals and with respect for human rights; an adequate standard of living; the highest attainable standard of health; play and recreation; protection from all forms of violence; and the right to be heard and taken seriously. Above all, this human rights treaty requires that children be respected as human beings with views, feelings and ideas of their own.

Only two UN member states have failed to ratify the children's Convention, making it one of the most widely supported human rights treaties in the world. Unlike the UK, many countries have made the Convention on the Rights of the Child part of their domestic law.

The year of action is run by a coalition of organisations that wants greater awareness and respect for children's rights in England. Sixteen year-old Trishna Jethwa designed the coalition's logo. The design student lives in Leicester and entered a national competition held earlier in the year. 

Photo credit: Clare Struthers, PhotoVoice.