TORONTO -- Children and youth from across Canada gathered in Toronto on Tuesday for a forum on how to protect the rights of the country's youngest citizens, which included the release of a strategy for meeting those goals known as the Canadian Children's Charter.

"It's a plan by children for children," said Sara Austin, founder of Children First Canada, a non-profit advocacy organization that created the charter with input from thousands of children and adolescents over the last year.

The charter, which highlights issues affecting young people and sets out a roadmap for change, will be sent to all members of Parliament and the Senate, as well as to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

As a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Austin said Canada has a legal responsibility as well as a moral imperative to protect children's rights.

"Yet we know that far too many kids in Canada simply just don't enjoy the protection of their very basic human rights," she said. "We know there are eight million kids in Canada and one-third of them have experienced some form of child abuse, very significant forms of trauma that impact them now and for decades to come.

"We know that one in five kids are living in poverty, that one in five teens have considered suicide in the past year alone."

Among the key topics dealt with in the charter is bullying, which Austin called a significant concern for children and youth.

"It certainly came up loud and clear in the consultations that we had with kids across the country," she said, explaining that her organization engaged young people through focus groups, in school and via online forums.

Survey-based research has shown that 15 per cent of Canadian children aged 11 to 15 reported being bullied at least twice in the previous month.

An economic analysis by Children First and the O'Brien Institute for Public Health at the University of Calgary, entitled Raising Canada, suggests the fallout from bullying costs the country $4 billion a year, based on its effects on children's mental health and later reduced productivity as adults.

"Bullying has been a phenomenon that children have experienced for generations, but it's taken on a new dimension through the age of the internet and social media, in particular," Austin said.

Indeed, bullying has been top of mind this week, given the arrest Monday of six students at a Toronto private boys' school over alleged incidents of assault and sexual assault.

Last week, St. Michael's College School expelled eight students and suspended another in connection with an alleged sexual assault in a locker room and another incident that police said involved hazing. Both incidents were captured on video.

Police sources have said the locker room incident involved a group of students pinning down another student and allegedly sexually assaulting him with a broom handle.

Describing the alleged incidents at St. Michael's as "tragic," Austin said they raise questions about what children are learning in their homes and at school.

"How do we work to combat the idea that this somehow was acceptable behaviour?" she said, stressing that children who are victimized need to know that they have the inherent worth and the right to be protected "from all forms of violence."

Eunice Yong of Ottawa, who was a youth host at Tuesday's forum, said she had a discussion with others attending about bullying, an experience "that's very much close to my heart."

"I myself was bullied quite a bit," she said of her years in elementary school, when she was picked on because of her weight.

"I can still hear the whispers of others," the 17-year-old, Grade 12 student said. "'Oh, she's a little bit on the larger size. She's kind of big. It's fun to pick on her."'

But she's come to believe it's not what a person looks like but who they are that matters -- a message she tries to impart to other young people.

"I emphasize to children that there is nothing that sets them apart except their uniqueness and their own personalities. We are all equals, so it doesn't matter about their religion, their ethnicity, their background, their sexuality.

"We're all the same."

Austin said the Children's Charter is meant to highlight the areas where young people's rights are not being protected and it calls on government, the private and charitable sectors, parents, educators and children themselves to work together to bring about change.

Among the issues highlighted in the document:

-- Ensuring children access to local health care, regardless of cost and free from discrimination.

-- Providing mental health education, services and treatment when needed, without stigma.

-- Ending bullying and providing protection from all forms of violence and abuse.

"Our kids are telling us they are struggling with a lot of issues, whether it's poverty, bullying, mental health issues or abuse," said Austin. "They created the charter with the hope that our government will use it as a roadmap to make Canada the best place in the world for kids to grow up."