This blog is written by Grace Allison in collaboration with the Centre for Children’s Rights and represents the first in a series of blogs written by children and young people. Grace is a member of the RADICAL youth research advisory group and Belfast City Youth Council. She is a pupil at Dominican College, Fortwilliam.
Age discrimination occurs when a person is treated differently or unfairly because of their age or because of assumptions and stereotypes related to it. Although this is mostly discussed in relation to the older generation, it is important to pose the question: where do young people fit in this conversation?
The present laws in Northern Ireland protect people from discrimination in relation to sex, gender, disability, and other factors regarding goods, facilities, and services. Yet, one glaring omission still exists: there is simply no full protection against age-based discrimination.
That’s where Sugden’s Age Discrimination Bill (2025) comes in.
Sugden’s Bill would ‘close the legislative gap by setting clear legal standards to ensure fairness and equality’. It is designed to promote equal treatment regardless of age and thus create a society where age never prevents someone from making full use of services or reduces their quality of life.
Similar protections already exist elsewhere. For example, Great Britain’s Equality Act 2010 and the Republic of Ireland’s Equal Status Acts 2000–2018 all contain robust protections against age discrimination. It’s been a long time coming for Northern Ireland to follow suit.
‘RADICAL’ stands for Respect and Disrespect in Children and Adolescents Lives. It is a project which seeks to address the lack of research on conceptions of respect and disrespect that include research with children. RADICAL has included questions, co-designed with children and young people, in the Kid’s Life and Times (KLT) and Young Life and Times (YLT) surveys to find out young peoples’ opinions on respect and disrespect.
Findings from the KLT and YLT surveys offered some powerful insight in terms of the presence of respect and disrespect in children and adolescents’ lives. One of the first questions asked within each survey was ‘How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Respect is…’. The highest and second-highest given responses from the YLT survey (16-year-olds) were ‘Listening to other people’s ideas’ and ‘Being taken seriously, even if you are young.’ However, for the KLT survey (10/11-year-olds) the highest and second-highest given responses were ‘Treating other people with kindness’ and ‘Listening to other people’s ideas’. It’s important to note that ‘Being taken seriously…’ was not offered as a response for the KLT survey as the children who co-designed the questions did not chose it as a response option.
These responses show that young people of all ages value being heard and equate this with inclusion and respect. The response from the YLT survey is also very representative of the importance of being taken seriously as an individual regardless of age. Sugden’s Bill acknowledges these feelings and through prohibiting age discrimination against young people regarding goods, facilities and services, aims to ensure that children and young people receive respect in all areas of their life. Some of the responses from KLT and YLT, as well as the qualitative data collected for the RADICAL study, show that children and young people feel they are expected to give respect but that they often do not receive it.
Some responses from the KLT and YLT surveys:
‘People think that older people should automatically get respect no matter what they do. Respect is earned and not given. Children don’t get respected because of their age. It’s not fair, you were once a child too.’ – KLT
‘I think children should be respected more in public places and not underestimated for their age.’ – KLT
‘I feel like I don’t get listened to about certain things purely because of my age despite researching and speaking to relevant people about it due to “not having experience”/ “the adults knowing better”.’ – YLT
‘Young people are treated with disrespect due to stereotypes regarding age.’ – YLT
Moreover, 78% and 41% of participants from the YLT and KLT surveys respectively, strongly agreed/agreed with the statement ‘Children/young people are less respected because of their age’. These responses show a clear imbalance in how young people and children are treated by their older, adult counterparts. We can also see from these responses that young people are more likely to agree with this statement. This might be due to increased social awareness or society’s tendency to treat young children and older children differently.
Finally, I’d like to discuss the ‘Impact of Mental Health’ subsection within the KLT survey. This section highlights the correlation between a child’s mental wellbeing and how respected they feel. The survey found that 62% of children who did not say they don’t feel respected had good/very good mental health, in contrast to only 38% of children who had said they don’t feel respected. Likewise, 25% of children who did not say they don’t feel respected had excellent mental health, dwarfing the mere 8% of children who had said they don’t feel respected. These results suggest a strong positive correlation between respect and mental health—the more respected a child is, the better their mental wellbeing.
Linking to Sugdon’s Bill and to the findings from the RADICAL research, which suggest different treatment on the basis of age, is the argument presented in the book ‘Treated Like a Child’. The key premise of the book is:
‘When age or childhood serves as the primary basis for treating children less favourably than adults, this raises the question of whether such treatment is justifiable, legitimate and proportionate or whether it constitutes discrimination on the grounds of age—in other words, whether children are being discriminated against for being children’ (pg.2).
There is currently very little literature focusing on the age-based discrimination of children, although some interest in the area is on the rise. ‘Treated Like a Child’ discusses this and highlights the dismissal and exclusion of children in society; the lack of protection against corporal punishment, limitations of political participation, restricted access to healthcare in matters concerning reproductive health, and the increasing exclusion of children from urban public spaces. Children are also removed from the conversation as age and childhood are not mentioned as protected grounds (from discrimination) in any human rights treaties. Although some may argue such differential treatment is ‘justified’ as it may be within the child’s best interests, there is evidence to suggest that differential treatment may have adverse effects in children and young people. For example, both the YLT and KLT surveys found that children and young people who reported that they did not feel respected were also more likely to report poorer mental health (see Adams, Allison, Kerlin and Olu-Sholanke, 2026).
Society has historically overlooked children and young people, and although we have seen significant improvements within recent years regarding ageism against the younger generations, we are not where we should be just yet.
Sugden’s Bill is a huge step in the right direction for the youth movement in Northern Ireland and hopefully will prompt further developments to end discrimination against children and young people.
References
Adams, R., Allison, G., Kerlin, C., Olu-Sholanke, D. and the RADICAL team (2026) Children’s and young people’s understandings and experiences of respect and disrespect, Research Update 159. Belfast: ARK
Daly, A., Leviner, P. and Thorburn Stern, R. (2025) (eds) Treated Like a Child: Age Discrimination and Children’s Rights. Leiden: Brill.