ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between discrimination and rights, and how this relationship is used in developing a conceptual framework that can be of practical use in the promotion of the rights of children. It explores, in a mainly UK context, what forms discrimination against children can take, the mechanisms via which it operates, and what its effects are on the lives and welfare of children. In another corner of the UK a second civil rights movement was gaining pace at much the same time, one that grew out of the systematic discrimination experienced by Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland, and which led to a 30-year civil war. The examples provide a clear link between human rights and discrimination, that is, upholding the human rights of vulnerable groups, is they ethnic or religious minorities, women, or people with disability, requires the identification and eradication of discrimination.
