Defence for Children international (DCI) is an independent non-governmental organisation set up during the International Year of the Child (1979) to ensure on-going, practical, systematic and concerted international action specially directed towards promoting and protecting the rights of the child.



The organisation's aims are:



- to advocate for children's rights so as to achieve the acknowledgement of children as equal legal subjects, within the framework of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, its optional protocols, and all other human rights instruments;

- to foster awareness about, and solidarity around, children's rights situations, issues and initiatives throughout the world;

- to seek, promote and implement the most effective means of securing the protection of the rights in concrete situations, from both a preventive and curative standpoint.



Our Vision



Children should enjoy and exercise their rights in a just, solidary society.



To achieve these aims, DCI's methods include



- publishing information on all aspects of children's rights, through regular and ad hoc publications;

- taking up specific cases of violations of children's rights referred to it as an independent agency;

- undertaking action-oriented investigations, alone or jointly, on serious global problems which are found to be inadequately documented internationally, e. g. the sexual exploitation of children, children in prison;

- taking direct action in response to situations involving the violation of rights of specific group of children;

- monitoring and evaluating the practical implementation of accepted children's rights;

- working for improved international standards in the children's rights sphere;

- stimulating co-operation and action, nationally, regionally and internationally, to improve responses to children's rights problems.