Article 31(1) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) provides all children, everywhere, with the right to play. The CRC is the most widely ratified international human rights treaty, yet children’s right to play is considered ‘the forgotten right’. The widespread State inaction to fulfil this right could be partly due to continued uncertainty about how to define play. This Article argues for the application a large body of recent research with the group most qualified to determine whether activities are play or not: young children. This research demonstrates that choice and autonomy are two universal and essential indicia for an activity to be experienced as play. The Article contends that the fulfilment of young children’s right to play would significantly increase if early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions within States utilised these two indicia within daily programmed activities and in ECEC policies.

中文翻译：

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第 31 条，31 年后：选择和自主权作为在幼儿服务中实施儿童游戏权的框架

《儿童权利公约》第 31 条第 1 款规定，世界各地的所有儿童都有玩耍的权利。《儿童权利公约》是获得最广泛批准的国际人权条约，但儿童的游戏权被认为是“被遗忘的权利”。国家普遍不采取行动来实现这一权利，部分原因可能是关于如何定义游戏的持续不确定性。本文为该应用程序进行了大量最近的研究，其中最有资格确定活动是否为游戏：幼儿。这项研究表明，选择和自主是作为游戏体验的活动的两个普遍且必不可少的标志。