Andressa Gadda has worked as a researcher in the field of child care and protection for over 10 years. Most recently she was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Child Wellbeing and Protection (CCWP) at the University of Stirling. She is currently the Head of Policy and Research at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI). Juliet Harris is the Director of Together (Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights) and leads the organisation in promoting and monitoring the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) across Scotland. This includes working with Together's membership of over 380 children's organisations and professionals to produce an annual State of Children's Rights report, as well as liaising with government and parliamentarians to further children's rights in legislation, policy and practice. Juliet's previous experience includes six years tackling the destitution and poverty of refugees and asylum seekers, alongside a number of roles with charities working in the field of health and homelessness.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is the most ratified international human rights treaty. Yet problems continue about ensuring that children's rights are recognised and supported in their daily lives. To this end, informal and formal efforts have been made for greater incorporation of the UNCRC into national law and policies. This special journal issue learns from these latest efforts, for the benefit of all human rights advocates in policy, practice and academia. The editorial outlines the contributions from eight articles, which were written by young people, practitioners who are directly influencing policy and practice, and academics from across the UK, Canada and Ireland with both national and international expertise. Written from different disciplines (including law, public policy and education), the special journal issue aims to enhance the critical evidence and strategic approach to implementing human rights in practice.

Andressa Gadda has worked as a researcher in the field of child care and protection for over 10 years. Most recently she was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Child Wellbeing and Protection (CCWP) at the University of Stirling. She is currently the Head of Policy and Research at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI). Juliet Harris is the Director of Together (Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights) and leads the organisation in promoting and monitoring the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) across Scotland. This includes working with Together's membership of over 380 children's organisations and professionals to produce an annual State of Children's Rights report, as well as liaising with government and parliamentarians to further children's rights in legislation, policy and practice. Juliet's previous experience includes six years tackling the destitution and poverty of refugees and asylum seekers, alongside a number of roles with charities working in the field of health and homelessness.

Like many of my generation I have had a lifelong love affair with India. During the second half of the 1940s (my teenage and impressionable years) I grew up in a household where left wing politics dominated our thinking and our conversations, and where our admiration for India's fight for freedom from British rule knew no bounds. Mahatma Gandhi was our hero, we shared his despair as it gradually became inevitable that his country would have to be partitioned, and like him we were horrified by the religious riots which followed independence and the million deaths which resulted. Then, to add to the horror, on his way to a prayer meeting in 1948 the Mahatma himself was assassinated.

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