International Day of Play

By 2013 the committee that reviews how the Convention is implemented had seen enough. In General comment No. 17 it reported that it was concerned by the poor recognition given by States to the rights in article 31.

The same document sets out what play actually is. Children's play, the Committee wrote, is initiated, controlled and structured by children themselves. Its key characteristics are fun, uncertainty, challenge, flexibility and non-productivity.

On 25 March, Viet Nam's representative rose to introduce it. Hoang Giang Dang told the Assembly that under article 31, the Convention had enshrined play as a fundamental right of every child.

Then a Secretariat official read out the countries that had joined as sponsors since the draft was tabled. The list ran from Algeria to Zambia and took in 124 more states. One of them was the United States, which signed the Convention and has not ratified it.

That sentence of Viet Nam's is where the article 31 framing enters the story. The resolution the Assembly then adopted, without a vote, never quotes article 31 and never uses the phrase right to play. It reaffirms the Convention whole, alongside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.