Children's rights or the rights of children are a subset of human rights with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to minors."Children's Rights" , Amnesty International. Retrieved 2/23/08. The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) defines a child as "any human being below the age of eighteen years, unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier."Convention on the Rights of the Child, G.A. res. 44/25, annex, 44 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 167, U.N. Doc. A/44/49 (1989), entered into force Sept. 2 1990. Children's rights includes their right to association with both parents, human identity as well as the basic needs for physical protection, food, universal state-paid education, health care, and criminal laws appropriate for the age and development of the child, equal protection of the child's civil rights, and freedom from discrimination on the basis of the child's race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability, color, ethnicity, or other characteristics.
Interpretations of children's rights range from allowing children the capacity for autonomous action to the enforcement of children being physically, mentally and emotionally free from abuse, though what constitutes "abuse" is a matter of debate. Other definitions include the rights to care and nurturing.Bandman, B. (1999) Children's Right to Freedom, Care, and Enlightenment. Routledge. p 67. There are no definitions of other terms used to describe young people such as "adolescents", "teenagers", or "youth" in international law,"Children and youth", Human Rights Education Association. Retrieved 2/23/08. but the children's rights movement is considered distinct from the youth rights movement. The field of children's rights spans the fields of law, politics, religion, and morality.
Justifications
As minors by law, children do not have autonomy or the right to make decisions on their own for themselves in any known jurisdiction of the world. Instead their adult caregivers, including parents, social workers, teachers, youth workers, and others, are vested with that authority, depending on the circumstances.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 Some believe that this state of affairs gives children insufficient control over their own lives and causes them to be vulnerable.Lansdown, G. (1994). "Children's rights," in B. Mayall (ed.) Children's childhood: Observed and experienced. London: The Falmer Press. p 33. Louis Althusser has gone so far as to describe this legal machinery, as it applies to children, as "repressive state apparatuses".Jenks, C. (1996) "Conceptual limitations," Childhood. New York: Routledge. p 43.
Structures such as government policy have been held by some commentators to mask the ways adults abuse and exploit children, resulting in child poverty, lack of educational opportunities, and child labour. On this view, children are to be regarded as a minority group towards whom society needs to reconsider the way it behaves.
Researchers have identified children as needing to be recognized as participants in society whose rights and responsibilities need to be recognized at all ages.Lansdown, G. (1994). "Children's rights," in B. Mayall (ed.) Children's childhood: Observed and experienced. London: The Falmer Press. p 34.
Historic definitions of children's rights
Sir William Blackstone (1765-9) recognized three parental duties to the child: maintenance, protection, and education.Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book One, Chapter Sixteen. (1765-1769). In modern language, the child has a right to receive these from the parent.
The League of Nations adopted the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1924), which enunciated the child's right to receive the requirements for normal development, the right of the hungry child to be fed, the right of the sick child to receive health care, the right of the backward child to be reclaimed, the right of orphans to shelter, and the right to protection from exploitation.Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924, adopted Sept. 26, 1924, League of Nations O.J. Spec. Supp. 21, at 43 (1924).
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) in Article 25(2) recognized the need of motherhood and childhood to "special protection and assistance" and the right of all children to "social protection".
The United Nations General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959), which enunciated ten principles for the protection of children's rights, including the universality of rights, the right to special protection, and the right to protection from discrimination, among other rights.Declaration of the Rights of the Child, G.A. res. 1386 (XIV), 14 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 19, U.N. Doc. A/4354 (1959).
Consensus on defining children's rights has become clearer in the last fifty years.Franklin, B. (2001) The new handbook of children's rights: comparative policy and practice. Routledge. p 19. A 1973 publication by Hillary Clinton (then an attorney) stated that children's rights were a "slogan in need of a definition". According to some researchers, the notion of children's rights is still not well defined, with at least one proposing that there is no singularly accepted definition or theory of the rights held by children.Mangold, S.V. (2002) "Transgressing the Border Between Protection and Empowerment for Domestic Violence Victims and Older Children: Empowerment as Protection in the Foster Care System," New England School of Law. Retrieved 4/3/08.
Children's rights law is defined as the point where the law intersects with a child's life. That 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 race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability, color, ethnicity, or other characteristics, and; health care and advocacy.Ahearn, D., Holzer, B. with Andrews, L. (2000, 2007) Children's Rights Law: A Career Guide. Harvard Law School. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
Classification
Children have two types of human rights under international human rights law. They have the same fundamental general human rights as adults, although some human rights, such as the right to marry, are dormant until they are of age, Secondly, they have special human rights that are necessary to protect them during their minority.UNICEF, Convention on the Rights of the Child , 29 November 2005. General rights operative in childhood include the right to security of the person, to freedom from inhuman, cruel, or degrading treatment, and the right to special protection during childhood. Particular human rights of children include, among other rights, the right to life, the right to a name, the right to express his views in matters concerning the child, the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, the right to health care, the right to protection from economic and sexual exploitation, and the right to education.
Children's rights are defined in numerous ways, including a wide spectrum of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. Rights tend to be of two general types: those advocating for children as autonomous persons under the law and those placing a claim on society for protection from harms perpetrated on children because of their dependency. These have been labeled as the right of empowerment and as the right to protection.
United Nations educational guides for children classify the rights outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child as the "3 Ps": Provision, Protection, and Participation. They may be elaborated as follows:
Provision: Children have the right to an adequate standard of living, health care, education and services, and to play and recreation. These include a balanced diet, a warm bed to sleep in, and access to schooling. Protection: Children have the right to protection from abuse, neglect, exploitation and discrimination. This includes the right to safe places for children to play; constructive child rearing behavior, and acknowledgment of the evolving capacities of children. Participation: Children have the right to participate in communities and have programs and services for themselves. This includes children's involvement in libraries and community programs, youth voice activities, and involving children as decision-makers.(1997) "Children's rights in the Canadian context", Interchange. 8(1–2). Springer.
In a similar fashion, the Child Rights International Network (CRIN) categorizes rights into two groups:"A-Z of Children's Rights", Children's Rights Information Network. Retrieved 2/23/08.Freeman, M. (2000) "The Future of Children's Rights," Children & Society. 14(4) p 277-93. 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, and raising awareness of human rights in the classroom. Human Rights Watch, an international advocacy organization, includes child labour, juvenile justice, orphans and abandoned children, refugees, street children and corporal punishment.
Scholarly study generally focuses children's rights by identifying individual rights. The following rights "allow children to grow up healthy and free":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. Freedom of speech Freedom of thought Freedom from fear Freedom of choice and the right to make decisions Ownership over one's body
Physical rights
A report by the Committee on Social Affairs, Health, and Sustainable Development of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe identified several areas the Committee was concerned about, including procedures such as "female genital mutilation, the circumcision of young boys for religious reasons, early childhood medical interventions in the case of intersex children and the submission to or coercion of children into piercings, tattoos or plastic surgery".Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development. Children's Right to Physical Integrity, Doc. 13297. Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, 6 September 2013. The Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution in 2013 that calls on its 47 member-states to take numerous actions to promote the physical integrity of children.Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Children's Right to Physical Integrity, Resolution 1952., Adopted at Strasbourg, Tuesday, 1 October 2013.