A LAW firm is campaigning for an independent organisation to protect children’s rights to be set up.

Hanson Renouf partner Tim Hanson (pictured) and head of family law at the firm Barbara Corbett have written to Chief Minister Frank Walker asking that a children’s commissioner or ombudsman be set up to monitor, promote and protect children’s rights.

This request follows a conference called ‘Children’s Voices’ held last month where various improvements were recommended but now the law firm want a ‘concrete’ solution to this ‘pressing and necessary reform’.

They say that it would cost the States about £25,000 a year if they used the UK Association of Lawyers for Children as the commissioner or ombudsman. In their letter to Senator Walker they write: ‘Jersey children need an independent voice and a champion. The benefits to Jersey will not just be in the resolution of difficulties for individual children and their parents, or in the gathering of the views of children in the Island.’