Children's Rights

A list of the basic rights children have.

There is always a lot of talk about children’s rights worldwide, but does anyone know the rights children have?

Every child has the right to a name and a nationality from birth. They also have the right to family or parental care, or to appropriate alternative care when removed from the family environment. How many children are in unhealthy environments worse than their family home? Like foster homes, where they only take the kids for an extra income, or in places of safety that are not safe at all.

In the case of divorce, children have the right to decide in whose care they want to be placed. They can’t be forced to live with any parent if they don’t wish. They are also entitled to basic nutrition, shelter, health care, and social services. Be protected from maltreatment, neglect, abuse, or degradation. We read every day about this kind of abuse against children, and not many know they have rights that protect them.

They have freedom of speech, thought, and choice to make their own decisions. This means the right to be allowed to say what they feel and think. How many parents don’t allow children to speak their minds and force them to accept anything said to them?

Children have the right to privacy, and not have that privacy impinged on by the whim of their parents or other adults. They can decide what religion they want to practise. We have no right to force our beliefs on them.

They cannot be used in armed conflict or any other situation where their lives are placed in danger. How many countries don’t use innocent children in wars?

Children have the right to be educated about sex and health issues concerning the practice of sex.

Corporal punishment is against the law, and neither parents nor educators have the right to discipline children with physical punishment.

In all these cases the child has the right to have a legal practitioner assigned to the child by the state, and at state expense, in civil proceedings affecting the child, if substantial injustice would otherwise result; and not be used directly in armed conflict, and to be protected in times of armed conflict.

These are just some of the rights children have, there are loads of other rights I didn’t write about here. It will take more than just one post to discuss it further. These are the basic rights of children, and many people don’t even know this.

Namaste