Children first - not just on NZ Children's Day

"Humanity owes to the child the best it has to give" is the opening principle of the 1924 Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, drafted by Save the Children founder Eglantyne Jebb more than 100 years ago to ensure children receive protection, nutrition, education, and development opportunities regardless of race or nationality. It emphasises that society's primary duty is prioritising child welfare – and formed the basis of what we know as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, almost universally ratified by countries around the world, including Aotearoa New Zealand in 1993.

But good intentions are not enough.

The latest Child Poverty Statistics show that around one in six (more than 210,000) children live in households below the poverty line after housing costs. Behind each number is a child whose parents are forced to choose between heating and eating, petrol and power, rent and school uniforms.

This is not the New Zealand we like to imagine ourselves to be.

Particular groups of children – including tamariki Māori, Pacific and disabled children and their whānau – face the deepest inequities. Stats NZ data shows disabled children experience significantly high rates of material hardship, while the IHC’s Data to Dignity 2026 report reveals the scale of unmet need: unstable housing, higher exposure to violence, and families pushed to exhaustion by systems that are meant to support them. Parents describe spending hours each week fighting for basic entitlements, support hours, respite, accessible housing, while trying to hold their families together. This is not dignity. This is not inclusion. And it is certainly not celebration.

Even more confronting is the violence occurring behind closed doors. New Zealand has one of the highest child homicide rates in the developed world for children under five. In the years since the murder of Malachi Subecz, 24 children under five have been killed – most by the very adults entrusted to love and protect them. These are not isolated tragedies. They are symptoms of a system that notices danger too late, intervenes too slowly, and fails to wrap around families before harm occurs. We cannot keep looking away because the truth is uncomfortable. The cost of our discomfort is children’s lives.

New Zealand has been told repeatedly what must change. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has urged us to end violence against children, lift children out of poverty, support and include disabled children, uphold the rights of tamariki Māori, protect children who cannot live with their families, eliminate discrimination, and build a restorative, child centred youth justice system. These are not radical demands. They are the minimum standard for a country that claims to value its children.

We love to say, “children are our future,” but that phrase has become a convenient shield. It allows us to talk about children as potential rather than people. It lets us postpone action. A child living in poverty today does not benefit from promises about tomorrow. A child living in fear tonight does not feel reassured by longterm strategies. Childhood is not a rehearsal. It is a once only, nonrefundable stage of life. What will it take for us to put children first?

A thriving future means investing in children’s wellbeing now. Healthy, educated, safe children grow into adults who contribute to a strong economy, cohesive communities, and a resilient society. The return on investment is undeniable.

Aotearoa needs a national recommitment to children, not symbolic, but structural. That means a bold, measurable plan to eliminate child poverty, not just reduce it. It means guaranteeing access to safe, stable, healthy housing for all families. It means a fully resourced, prevention focused system to stop violence before it happens. It means real support for disabled children and whānau, not bureaucratic battles. It means investing in whānau centred, culturally grounded solutions for tamariki Māori. It means a government that treats children’s wellbeing as core infrastructure, not a discretionary cost.

Every child in Aotearoa deserves a childhood filled with safety, belonging and opportunity. A childhood where they are celebrated not just on one day, but every day, through government policies, budget commitments and a culture where child rights are upheld.

Celebrating our children is the right thing to do. But demanding real change and refusing to settle for anything less is how we honour them. If we want a Children’s Day that truly shines, we must first build a country where every child is genuinely celebrated.

Jacqui Southey is the Child Rights Advocacy and Research Director for Save the Children New Zealand.