A TWELVE-YEAR-OLD girl from Tranent was the "youngest moderator" at the first-ever UN global discussion on children's human rights defenders.

Hannah Richardson travelled with 11 other youngsters from the Fa'side area to UN offices in Geneva, working in partnership with Children's Parliament and the Recharge team.

The global talk was on the UN's Day of General Discussion, held last Friday, where the theme was 'Children as Human Rights Defenders'.

She was one of only two children from the UK to be part of Child Rights Connect's (CRC) global advisory team - the other being Cameron Butchart, 12, also from Tranent.

The CRC's team work closely with the UN Committee of Rights of the Child.

They were also delivering hand-painted shields, that carried key messages about children's rights on them, which went on display in the UN offices.

Hannah has been working with the UN as a Children's Advisor to the Committee for the Rights of a Child for the past six months.

That included making the plans for the event in Geneva, as well as touring Scotland to educate youngsters on their human rights and finding out what rights are most important to them.

This is where the artwork for the shields was created - becoming evidence for what children need and want in Scotland.

The youngsters toured UN delegates around the five shields, explaining what they were and what they represented.

Hannah said: "I was invited to moderate one of the discussions. It was an exciting experience but I was also really nervous.

"I did have to tell one or two of the speakers that their time was up and they needed to finish talking and I was really nervous to do that because I didn't want to come out sounding rude, but I think I got away with it.

"Why am I doing this? I want children to understand their rights and know all their rights so they can stand up for themselves."