In 1978, the UN Commission on Human Rights put forth a draft of a Convention on the Rights of the Child for consideration by a working group of Member States, agencies and intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations. A year later to mark the twentieth anniversary of the 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, the United Nations General Assembly declared 1979 as the International Year of the Child, in which UNICEF plays a leading role. It would be another decade before the Convention on the Rights of the Child is adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and widely acclaimed as a landmark achievement for human rights, recognising the roles of children as social, economic, political, civil and cultural actors. The Convention guarantees and sets minimum standards for protecting the rights of children in all capacities. UNICEF, which helped draft the Convention, is named in the document as a source of expertise.

South Africa ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) on 16 June 1995. (It was the first international treaty that the new democratic government ratified.) The UNCRC became the first legally binding international convention to affirm human rights for all children.