Today, we are delighted to launch our Tiny Rights Detectives Report, an important step in ensuring that babies’ rights are recognised and upheld in Scotland. This comes just a day before The Right Start conference, which we are co-hosting with Starcatchers and Children in Scotland. The conference will bring together professionals, advocates, and policymakers to explore how babies’ rights, voices, and experiences can be better understood and embedded in policy and practice. 

Over the past year, Together has strengthened our focus on the rights of babies and young children, thanks to a five-year partnership with Cattanach, which began in April 2024. This has enabled us to develop new initiatives like the Tiny Rights Detectives, while also ensuring that babies’ rights are embedded right across all our work. From our State of Children’s Rights Report to our input into the UN Committee’s draft General Comment on Access to Justice, we have worked to highlight the specific barriers faced by babies and their families. Most recently, our annual Human Rights Clinic with LLM Human Rights students at the University of Edinburgh has started a comparative analysis of how babies’ rights are upheld in courts internationally – helping us to build evidence on how access to justice can be strengthened for Scotland’s youngest children.

What did the Tiny Rights Detectives find? 

Through the Tiny Rights Detectives, we set out to explore how babies experience and communicate their rights – and what prevents these rights from being met. Working with families and organisations across Scotland, we found that babies clearly express their needs and preferences, yet these signals are often overlooked. Trusted relationships with caregivers play a crucial role in ensuring babies’ rights are recognised, but systemic barriers – such as transport, unsafe public spaces, and inaccessible complaints processes – continue to limit their access to services and justice. 

Our investigations also showed that many existing complaints mechanisms fail to capture babies’ experiences, making it difficult for families to challenge rights violations. Without greater awareness and more accessible pathways to justice, many of the youngest children in Scotland will continue to be excluded from the rights protections now enshrined in law. 

The Right Start: Linking research to action 

The Right Start conference will provide an opportunity to take these findings forward. Our workshop on access to justice for babies will explore what justice means for the youngest children and how the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 can be used to strengthen babies’ access to justice. The conference will also look at the role of the arts in supporting babies’ voices, drawing on research from Starcatchers’ Voice of the Baby project. 

This wider focus is essential. Babies’ rights are often overlooked or treated as a secondary issue in wider children’s rights discussions. Yet, as the Tiny Rights Detectives have shown, babies actively communicate their needs and experiences every day – it is the responsibility of adults and decision-makers to listen and act. 

What’s next? 

The Tiny Rights Detectives pilot has demonstrated that change is possible when services and policymakers recognise babies as rights holders. But there is much more to do. Over the coming months, we will be seeking further funding to work with our members and partners to build on these findings. This will include supporting organisations to develop rights-based approaches, strengthening pathways to justice for babies and their families, and using our evidence to influence policy and practice. 

The UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 provides a real opportunity to put babies’ rights at the heart of decision-making in Scotland. The challenge now is ensuring that services, policies, and legal mechanisms reflect what babies and their families need. The Tiny Rights Detectives are just the beginning – by continuing to work together, we can take meaningful steps towards a Scotland where every baby’s rights are respected, protected and fulfilled.

• Read the Tiny Rights Detectives Report
• Read the child-friendly Tiny Rights Detectives Report
• Read our e-news article about the reports
• Join us at The Right Start conference

Ends

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