General Comment No. 27 on children’s access to justice adopted: the concerns we documented echo in the outcome of the consultation

The Committee adopts General Comment No. 27

In June 2025, we contributed to the public consultation on draft General Comment No. 27 of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. Our submission was prepared by Sarah Thierrée, Johnny Dousse and Marie Sablon, and signed by Sarah Thierrée. It focused on systemic failures observed in France that prevent children, in particular victims of intrafamily violence, from obtaining an effective remedy.

On 28 September 2026, the Committee adopted General Comment No. 27 on the right of the child to access to justice and to an effective remedy. The adoption was announced by Benoût Van Keirsbilck, member of the Committee, who described the General Comment as an authoritative interpretation and a guide for States, inviting them to adapt their justice systems and to establish accessible, adapted and effective remedy mechanisms. The text is expected to be published shortly on the website of the Committee.

A consultation with broad participation

The drafting process included a public consultation. The Committee received 315 submissions from States, national human rights institutions, civil society organizations and individuals, together with the outcomes of more than 141 consultations, including 82 involving at least 7,215 children. Our contribution was one of these 315 submissions.

Concerns raised in our submission

Our submission addressed four major issues: the absence of effective remedies for children who are victims of intrafamily violence, including situations where a child reporting abuse remains under the authority of the alleged perpetrator while the protective parent faces prosecution; serious failings in court ordered expertise, including the use of concepts lacking scientific recognition such as so called parental alienation syndrome; repeated violations of children’s rights by certain judges, through expedited dismissal of complaints, reversal of the burden of proof and disregard of the child’s voice; and opaque practices of child welfare services producing reports that are sometimes biased and shielded from contradiction.

Throughout the submission, we stressed a point that goes to the heart of the right of access to justice: children who report violence are too often not believed. Their statements are dismissed as exaggerated, manipulated or products of imagination. The result is secondary victimization, deep distrust of courts and law enforcement, and fear of reporting, driven by fear of retaliation, family or community stigma, or the simple expectation of not being believed by the authorities.

Points of convergence

These observations closely echo what children themselves told the Committee during the preparation of General Comment No. 27. In the words of children consulted for the drafting process, society and public institutions remain strongly focused on adults, frequently invalidating or ignoring their experiences and treating them as incapable because of their age. Adults, they explained, often reject their complaints as exaggerations or products of their imagination, thereby excluding them from decisions that directly affect their lives. Many children described courts and law enforcement as intimidating, slow and often a source of revictimization, and declared being afraid to file complaints for fear of reprisals or of simply not being believed by the authorities.

We welcome the fact that the concerns we documented in our submission are fully consistent with the concerns expressed by children and taken on board by the Committee in the adoption of General Comment No. 27.