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Other issues affecting children's rights include the [[sale of children]], [[child prostitution]] and [[child pornography]].
Other issues affecting children's rights include the [[sale of children]], [[child prostitution]] and [[child pornography]].



===Difference between children's rights and youth rights===
{{main|Youth rights}}
"In the majority of jurisdictions, for instance, children are not allowed to vote, to marry, to buy alcohol, to have sex, or to engage in paid employment."<ref>[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-children/ "Children's Rights"], ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.'' Retrieved 2/23/08.</ref> Within the [[youth rights movement]], it is believed that the key difference between ''children's'' rights and ''[[youth rights|youth]]'' rights is that children's rights supporters generally advocate the establishment and enforcement of ''protection'' for children and youths, while youth rights (a far smaller movement) generally advocates the expansion of ''freedom'' for children and/or youths and of rights such as [[suffrage]].{{fact|date=February 2008}}


===Parenting and children's rights===
===Parenting and children's rights===

Revision as of 22:44, 29 March 2008

Rights
Theoretical distinctions
Human rights
Rights by beneficiary
Other groups of rights

Children's rights are the human rights of children as provided for in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most ratified human rights treaty known to our world, and ratified by every country of the earth except for the United States of America, which has agreed to, but withheld ratification. The most fundamental of these rights being the child's right to the society of both biological parents, human identity and the state's assurance to meet the basic needs of a child for food, universal state paid education, health care and criminal laws appropriate for the age and development of the child. Age appropriate protection of the child their stage of human development is the principal for protection of children.[1]. Other definitions include the rights to care and nurturing.[2]

"A child is any human being below the age of eighteen years, unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier."[3] According to Cornell University, a child is a person, not a subperson, and the parent has absolute interest and possession of the child. The term "child" does not necessarily mean minor but can include adult children as well as adult nondependent children.[4] There are no definitions of other terms used to describe young people such as "adolescents", "teenagers" ,or "youth" in international law.[5]

The field of children's rights spans the fields of law, politics, religion, and morality.

Rationale

A boy working as a "clock boy" on the streets of Merida, Mexico.

As minors by law children do not have autonomy or the right to make decisions on their own for themselves. Instead their adult caregivers, including parents, social workers, teachers, youth workers and others, are vested with that authority depending on the circumstance the child is in.[6] As applied to children these legal apparatuses are termed as "Repressive State Apparatuses," a concept which was originally coined by Louis Althusser.[7]

Research has found that because of these legal structures children themselves feel powerless and with little control over their own lives, and believe that the power of this structure, as opposed to their age or developmental ability, causes them to be vulnerable.[8] Structures such as government policy have been found to mask the ways adults abuse and exploit children, resulting in child poverty, lack of educational opportunities, and child labor. Research has also identified children as a minority group towards whom society needs to reconsider the way it behaves.[9]

Researchers have identified children as needing to be recognized as participants in society whose rights and responsibilities need to be recognized at all ages.[10]

Historic definitions of children's rights

Consensus on defining children's rights has become clearer in the last twenty years.[11] A 1973 publication by Hillary Clinton (then an attorney, later U.S. First Lady, Senator and presidential candidate) stated that children's rights were a "slogan in need of a definition".[12]

Children’s rights law is defined as the point where the law intersects with a child’s life. According to the Harvard Law School, children's rights law includes juvenile delinquency, due process for children involved in the criminal justice system, appropriate representation, and effective rehabilitative services; care and protection for children in state care; ensuring education for all children regardless of their origin, race, gender, disabilities, or abilities, and; health care and advocacy.[13]

Types of rights

Children's rights are defined in numerous ways, including a wide spectrum of civil, cultural, economic, social and political rights. A Canadian organization categorizes children's rights into three categories, including:

In a similar fashion, the Children's Rights Information Network categorizes rights into two groups, including:[16] [17]

  • Economic, social and cultural rights, related to the conditions necessary to meet basic human needs such as food, shelter, education, health care, and gainful employment. Included are rights to education, adequate housing, food, water, the highest attainable standard of health, the right to work and rights at work, as well as the cultural rights of minorities and indigenous peoples.
  • Environmental, cultural and developmental rights, which are sometimes called "third generation rights," and including the right to live in safe and healthy environments and that groups of people have the right to cultural, political, and economic development.

Amnesty International openly advocates four particular children's rights, including the end to juvenile incarceration without parole, an end to the recruitment of military use of children, ending the death penalty for people under 21, encouraging the enforcement of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and raising awareness of human rights in the classroom.[18] Human Rights Watch, an international advocacy organization, includes child labor, juvenile justice, orphans and abandoned children, refugees, street children and corporal punishment.[19]

Scholarly study generally focuses children's rights by identifying individual rights. The following rights "allow children to grow up healthy and free":[20]

Other issues affecting children's rights include the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.


Parenting and children's rights

See also: Parents' rights movement

Parents affect the lives of children in a unique way, and as such their role in children's rights has to be distinguished in a particular way. Particular issues in the parent/child relationship include freedom of choice, corporal punishment, child abuse and child custody.[21] [22] There have been theories offered that provide parents with rights-based practices that resolve the tension between "commonsense parenting" and children's rights.[23] The issue is particularly relevant in legal proceedings affect the potential emancipation of minors, and in cases where children sue their parents.[24]

Children's rights to a relationship with their parents is increasingly recognized as an important factor for determining the best interests of the child in divorce and child custody proceedings. Some governments have enacted laws creating a rebuttable presumption that shared parenting is in the best interests of children.[25]

Movement

Main article: Children's rights movement

The 1796 publication of Thomas Spence's The Rights of Infants is among the earliest English-language assertions of the rights of children. Throughout the 1900s children's rights activists organized for homeless childrens' rights and public education. The 1927 publication of The Child's Right to Respect by Janusz Korczak strengthened the literature surrounding the field, and today dozens of international organizations are working around the world to promote children's rights.

Opposition

Opponents to children's rights believe that young people need to be protected from the adultcentric world, including the decisions and responsibilities of that world.[26] In the dominate adult society, childhood is idealized as a time of innocence, a time free of responsibility and conflict, and a time dominated by play.[27] The majority of opposition stems from concerns related to national sovereignty, states' rights, the parent-child relationship.[28] Financial constraints and the "undercurrent of traditional values in opposition to children's rights" are cited, as well.[29]

However, the opposition to children's rights far outdates any US political administration, with recorded statements against the rights of children dating to the 1600s, the 1200s, and earlier.[30] Much of the opposition to children's rights in the United States is currently expressed towards the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with US President George W. Bush explaining in 2001:

"The Convention on the Rights of the Child may be a positive tool for promoting child welfare for those countries that have adopted it. But we believe the text goes too far when it asserts entitlements based on economic, social and cultural rights.... The human rights-based approach... poses significant problems as used in this text."[31]

According to Amnesty International, several conservative religious organizations in the United States oppose the Convention on the Rights of the Child, including the Christian Coalition, Concerned Women for America, Eagle Forum, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, the John Birch Society, the National Center for Home Education, and the Rutherford Institute.[32]

International law

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is seen as a basis for all international legal standards for children's rights today. There are several conventions and laws that addressing children's rights around the world. A number of current and historical documents affect those rights. The United Nations' 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child is one such document, and is monitored by the Committee on the Rights of the Child. The USA and Somalia are the only countries which have failed to ratify that agreement.[33] The 1923 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, endorsed by the League of Nations was adopted by the UN in 1946, and was the basis for rewriting the later Convention.

Enforcement

A variety of enforcement organizations and mechanisms exist to ensure children's rights. They include the Child Rights Caucus for the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children. It was set up to promote full implementation and compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to ensure that child rights were given priority during the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children and its Preparatory process. The United Nations Human Rights Council was created "with the hope that it could be more objective, credible and efficient in denouncing human rights violations worldwide than the highly politicised Commission on Human Rights." The NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child is a coalition of international non-governmental organisations originally formed in 1983 to facilitate the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Many countries around the world have children's rights ombudspeople or children's commissioners whose official, governmental duty is to represent the interests of the public by investigating and addressing complaints reported by individual citizens regarding children's rights. Children's ombudspeople can also work for a corporation, a newspaper, an NGO, or even for the general public.

United States law

Children are generally afforded the basic rights embodied by the Constitution, as enshrined by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Equal Protection Clause of that amendment is to apply to children, born within a marriage or not, but excludes children not yet born.[34] This was reinforced by the landmark US Supreme Court decision of In re Gault. In this trial 15-year-old Gerald Gault of Arizona was taken into custody by local police after being accused of making an obscene telephone call. He was detained and committed to the Arizona State Industrial School until he reached the age of 21 for making an obscene phone call to an adult neighbor. In an 8-1 decision, the Court ruled that in hearings which could result in commitment to an institution, people under the age of 18 have the right to notice and counsel, to question witnesses, and to protection against self-incrimination. The Court found that the procedures used in Gault's hearing met none of these requirements.[35]

There are other concerns in the United States regarding children's rights. The American Academy of Adoption Attorneys is concerned with children's rights to a safe, supportive and stable family structure. Their position on children's rights in adoption cases states that, "children have a constitutionally based liberty interest in the protection of their established families, rights which are at least equal to, and we believe outweigh, the rights of others who would claim a 'possessory' interest in these children."[36] Other issues raised in American children's rights advocacy include children's rights to inheritance in same-sex marriages and particular rights for youth.

See also

Issues

Further information: List of articles related to youth rights

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Children's rights organizations

Further information: List of children's rights organizations by country
Further information: Category:Children's rights bodies

References

  1. ^ [http://www.canadiancrc.com/UN_CRC/UN_CRC.aspx "Children's Rights"
  2. ^ Bandman, B. (1999) Children's Right to Freedom, Care, and Enlightenment. Routledge. p 67.
  3. ^ (1989) "Convention on the Rights of the Child", United Nations. Retrieved 2/23/08.
  4. ^ "Children's Rights", Cornell University Law School. Retrieved 2/23/08.
  5. ^ "Children and youth", Human Rights Education Association. Retrieved 2/23/08.
  6. ^ Lansdown, G. "Children's welfare and children's rights," in Hendrick, H. (2005) Child Welfare And Social Policy: An Essential Reader. The Policy Press. p. 117
  7. ^ Jenks, C. (1996) "Conceptual limitations," Childhood. New York: Routledge. p 43.
  8. ^ Lansdown, G. (1994). "Children's rights," in B. Mayall (ed.) Children's childhood: Observed and experienced. London: The Falmer Press. p 33.
  9. ^ Thorne, B. (1987) "Re-Visioning Women and Social Change: Where Are the Children?" Gender & Society 1(1) p. 85–109.
  10. ^ Lansdown, G. (1994). "Children's rights," in B. Mayall (ed.) Children's childhood: Observed and experienced. London: The Falmer Press. p 34.
  11. ^ Franklin, B. (2001) The new handbook of children's rights: comparative policy and practice. Routledge. p 19.
  12. ^ Rodham, H. (1973). "Children Under the Law". Harvard Educational Review 43: 487–514.
  13. ^ Ahearn, D., Holzer, B. with Andrews, L. (2000, 2007) Children's Rights Law: A Career Guide. Harvard Law School. Retrieved 2/23/08.
  14. ^ "Respecting children's rights at home", Children and Families in Canada. Retrieved 2/23/08.
  15. ^ (1997) "Children's rights in the Canadian context", Interchange. 8(1-2). Springer.
  16. ^ "A-Z of Children's Rights", Children's Rights Information Network. Retrieved 2/23/08.
  17. ^ Freeman, M. (2000) "The Future of Children's Rights," Children & Society. 14(4) p 277-93.
  18. ^ "Children's Rights", Amnesty International. Retrieved 2/23/08.
  19. ^ "Children's Rights", Human Rights Watch. Retrieved 2/23/08.
  20. ^ Calkins, C.F. (1972) "Reviewed Work: Children's Rights: Toward the Liberation of the Child by Paul Adams", Peabody Journal of Education. 49(4). p. 327.
  21. ^ Brownlie, J. and Anderson, S. (2006) "'Beyond Anti-Smacking': Rethinking parent–child relations," Childhood. 13(4) p 479-498.
  22. ^ Cutting, E. (1999) "Giving Parents a Voice: A Children's Rights Issue," Rightlines. 2 ERIC #ED428855.
  23. ^ Brennan, S. and Noggle, R. (1997) "The Moral Status of Children: Children's Rights, Parent's Rights, and Family Justice," Social Theory and Practice. 23.
  24. ^ Kaslow, FW (1990) Children who sue parents: A new form of family homicide? Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. 16(2) p 151–163.
  25. ^ "What is equal shared parenting?" Fathers Are Capable Too: Parenting Association. Retrieved 2/24/08.
  26. ^ DeLamater, J.D. (2003) Handbook of Social Psychology. Springer. p 150.
  27. ^ Lansdown, G. (1994). "Children's rights," in B. Mayall (ed.) Children's childhood: Observed and experienced. London: The Falmer Press. (p 33-34).
  28. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions about Children's Rights", Amnesty International USA. Retrieved 2/24/08.
  29. ^ Covell, K. and Howe, R.B. (2001) The Challenge of Children's Rights for Canada. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p 158.
  30. ^ Starr, RH (1975) Children's Rights: Countering the Opposition. Paper presented at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association in Chicago, Illinois, Aug. 30-Sept. 3, 1975. ERIC ID# ED121416.
  31. ^ Anderson, MJ (2001) [ "Bush team signals new U.N. direction, Decries 'erosion of parental authority' in internationalization of family policy"], WorldNetDaily.com. February 02, 2001. Retrieved 2/24/08.
  32. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions about Children's Rights", Amnesty International USA. Retrieved 2/24/08.
  33. ^ Arts, K. and Popovski, V. (2006) International Criminal Accountability and the Rights of Children. Cambridge Press.
  34. ^ "Children's Rights", Cornell University Law School. Retrieved 2/23/08.
  35. ^ "Children's Rights Under the Constitution Discussed at the National Constitution Center," Retrieved 2/27/08.
  36. ^ AAAA Position on Children's Rights in Adoption. Retrieved 2/27/08.
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