The Children's Rights Movement is a historical and modern movement committed to the acknowledgment, expansion, and/or regression of the rights of children around the world. (Not to be confused with Youth rights). It began in the early part of the last century and has been an effort by government organizations, advocacy groups, academics, lawyers, lawmakers, and judges to construct a system of laws and policies that enhance and protect the lives of children. While the historical definition of

child A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person young ...

has varied, the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

Convention on the Rights of the Child asserts that "A child is any human being below the age of eighteen years, unless under the law applicable to the child,

majority A majority, also called a simple majority or absolute majority to distinguish it from related terms, is more than half of the total.Dictionary definitions of ''majority'' aMerriam-Websteradolescents", "teenagers" or "

youth Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood ( maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as being a young adult. Yo ...

" in international law. Now that child labor had been effectively eradicated in parts of the world, the movement turned to other things, but it again stalled when

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

broke out and children and women began to enter the work force once more. With millions of adults at war, the children were needed to help keep the country running. In Europe, children served as couriers, intelligence collectors, and other underground resistance workers in opposition to

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

's regime.

History

Natural rights

The concept of children having particular rights is a relatively new one. Traditional attitudes towards children tended to consider them as mere extensions of the household and 'owned' by their parents and/or legal guardian, who exerted absolute parental control. Views began to change during the Enlightenment, when tradition was increasingly challenged and the value of individual autonomy and natural rights began to be asserted. The

Foundling Hospital The Foundling Hospital in London, England, was founded in 1739 by the philanthropic sea captain Thomas Coram. It was a children's home established for the "education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children." The word " hospita ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

was founded in 1741 as a children's home for the "education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children". Thomas Spence, an English political

radical Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics * Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe an ...

wrote the first modern defence of the natural rights of children in ''The Rights of Infants'', published in 1796.

Social reform

With the onset of the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

, children as young as six began to be employed in the factories and

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

s in often inhumane conditions with long hours and little pay. During the early 19th century this exploitation began to attract growing opposition. The terrible conditions of the poor urban children was exposed to liberal middle-class opinion, notably by the author

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

in his novel ''

Oliver Twist ''Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress'', Charles Dickens's second novel, was published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, and as a three-volume book in 1838. Born in a workhouse, the orphan Oliver Twist is bound into apprenticeship with ...

''.

Social reform A reform movement or reformism is a type of social movement that aims to bring a social or also a political system closer to the community's ideal. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary mov ...

ers, such as the

Lord Shaftesbury Earl of Shaftesbury is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1672 for Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Baron Ashley, a prominent politician in the Cabal then dominating the policies of King Charles II. He had already succeeded his fa ...

, began to mount a vigorous campaign against this practice. Ameliorating

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred to ...

was achieved with a series of

Factory Acts The Factory Acts were a series of acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to regulate the conditions of industrial employment. The early Acts concentrated on regulating the hours of work and moral welfare of young children employed ...

passed during the 19th century, where working hours for children were limited and they were no longer permitted to work during the night. Children younger than nine were not allowed to work and those between 9-16 were limited to 16 hours per day. Factories were also required to provide education to the apprentices in reading, writing and arithmetic for the first four years. An influential social reformer was Mary Carpenter, who campaigned on behalf of neglected children who had turned to

juvenile delinquency Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. In the United States of America, a juvenile delinquent is a perso ...

. In 1851 she proposed the establishment of three types of schools; free day schools for the general population, industrial schools for those in need and reformatory schools for young offenders. She was consulted by the drafters of educational bills, and she was invited to give evidence before House of Commons committees. In 1852 she established a reformatory school at Bristol. In the United States, the Children's Rights Movement began with the orphan train. In the big cities, when a child's parents died or were extremely poor, the child frequently had to go to work to support himself and/or his family. Boys generally became

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

workers, and girls became prostitutes or saloon girls, or else went to work in a sweat shop. All of these jobs paid only starvation wages. In 1852,

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

required children to attend school. In 1853, Charles Brace founded the ''

Children's Aid Society Children's Aid, formerly the Children's Aid Society, is a private child welfare nonprofit in New York City founded in 1853 by Charles Loring Brace. With an annual budget of over $100 million, 45 citywide sites, and over 1,200 full-time employ ...

'', which worked hard to take street children in. The following year, the children were placed on a train headed for the West, where they were adopted, and often given work. By 1929, the orphan train stopped running altogether, but its principles lived on. The '' National Child Labor Committee'', an organization dedicated to the abolition of all child labor, was formed in the 1890s. It managed to pass one law, which was struck down by the Supreme Court two years later for violating a child's right to contract his work. In 1924,

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

attempted to pass a

constitutional amendment A constitutional amendment is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly altering the text. Conversely, ...

that would authorize a national child labor law. This measure was blocked, and the bill was eventually dropped. It took the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

to end child labor nationwide; adults had become so desperate for jobs that they would work for the same wage as children. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the

Fair Labor Standards Act The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) is a United States labor law that creates the right to a minimum wage, and " time-and-a-half" overtime pay when people work over forty hours a week. It also prohibits employment of minors in "oppr ...

which, amongst other things, placed limits on many forms of child labor. The Polish educationalist

Janusz Korczak Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit (22 July 1878 or 1879 – 7 August 1942), was a Polish Jewish educator, children's author and pedagogue known as ''Pan Doktor'' ("Mr. Doctor") or ''Stary Doktor'' ("Old Doctor"). After spending m ...

wrote of the rights of children in his book ''How to Love a Child'' (Warsaw, 1919); a later book was entitled ''The Child's Right to Respect'' (Warsaw, 1929). In 1917, following the Russian Revolution, the Moscow branch of the organization

Proletkult Proletkult ( rus, Пролетку́льт, p=prəlʲɪtˈkulʲt), a portmanteau of the Russian words "proletarskaya kultura" (proletarian culture), was an experimental Soviet artistic institution that arose in conjunction with the Russian Revolut ...

produced a Declaration of Children's Rights.

Rights of the Child

The first formal charter to set out the rights of children was drafted by British social reformer

Eglantyne Jebb Eglantyne Jebb (25 August 1876 – 17 December 1928) was a British social reformer who founded the Save the Children organisation at the end of the First World War to relieve the effects of famine in Austria-Hungary and Germany. She drafted th ...

in 1923. Jebb founded

Save the Children The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic ...

in 1919, one of the first charities aimed at the young, to help alleviate the starvation of children in Germany and

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

during the Allied

blockade of Germany The Blockade of Germany, or the Blockade of Europe, occurred from 1914 to 1919. The prolonged naval blockade was conducted by the Allies during and after World War I in an effort to restrict the maritime supply of goods to the Central Powers, w ...

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

which continued after the

Armistice An armistice is a formal agreement of warring parties to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, as it may constitute only a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace. It is derived from the ...

Her experiences there and later in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

, led her to believe that the rights of a child needed be especially protected and enforced, and her stipulations consisted of the following criteria:

#The child must be given the means requisite for its normal development, both materially and spiritually. #The child that is hungry must be fed, the child that is sick must be nursed, the child that is backward must be helped, the delinquent child must be reclaimed, and the orphan and the waif must be sheltered and succored. #The child must be the first to receive relief in times of distress. #The child must be put in a position to earn a livelihood, and must be protected against every form of exploitation. #The child must be brought up in the consciousness that its talents must be devoted to the service of its fellow men.

This manifesto was adopted by the International Save the Children Union and endorsed by the

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference th ...

General Assembly in 1924 as the World Child Welfare Charter. In 1925, the first International Child Welfare Congress was held in Geneva, where the Declaration was widely discussed and supported by organisations and governments.

Declaration of the Rights of the Child

The SCIU also pressed the newly formed United Nations in 1946 to adopt the World Child Welfare Charter. This was achieved in 1959, when the

United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...

adopted an expanded version as the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Its main provisions are: * protection rights: the right to be protected against maltreatment and neglect, the right to be protected from all forms of exploitation * provision rights: the right to food and to health care, the right to education, the right to benefit from social security * participation rights: the right to act in certain circumstances and the right to be involved in decision-making From the formation of the

to the present day, the Children's Rights Movement has become global in focus. Children around the world still suffer from forced child labor, genital mutilation, military service, and

sex trafficking Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the ...

. Several international organizations have rallied to the assistance of children. These include

, Free the Children, and the Children's Defense Fund. The

Child Rights Information Network Child Rights International Network (CRIN) is an international network that supports the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and child rights. The network's goal is to advocate for children's rights and enforce them globally. ...

, or CRIN, formed in 1983, is a group of 1,600

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in ...

s from around the world which advocate for the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Organizations report on their countries' progress towards implementation, as do governments that have ratified the convention. Every 5 years reporting to the

United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a body of experts that monitor and report on the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Committee also monitors the Convention's three optional protoc ...

is required for governments.

Children's rights by country

Many countries have created an institute of children's rights commissioner or

ombudsman An ombudsman (, also ,), ombud, ombuds, ombudswoman, ombudsperson or public advocate is an official who is usually appointed by the government or by parliament (usually with a significant degree of independence) to investigate complaints and at ...

, the first being Norway in 1981. Others include India, Finland, Sweden, and Ukraine, which was the first country worldwide to install a child in that post in 2005.

Argentina

In 2005, in order to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, national Law for the Integral Protection of Children and Adolescents was enacted. This not only allows for protective measures for children, but also created the groundwork for a juvenile justice system. This system allows for children to be integrated back into society and established tactics to protect children from abuse and exploitation.(Honorable Poe Ted, 2011)

Australia

Australia is a participant to all significant treaties that impact on children's rights. The rights and protection of children are governed by both Federal and state and territory law.

Brazil

Brazil is a founding member of the UN and a signatory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by General Assembly resolution in 1948. The Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Child emphasizes that motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and that children born out of wedlock are allowed the same social protection. In 1990, Brazil approved the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and fully incorporated it onto Brazil's positive law.

China

China has ratified many international documents with regard to children's rights protection, including the 1989 Convention on Rights of the Child, the Optional Protocol to the Convention on Rights of Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography 2000, the Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention 1999, and The Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption 1993.

France

France is in cooperation with all the major treaties dealing with children rights. It has in place several mechanisms to monitor the implementation of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, in particular, an ombudsman for children.

Germany

Germany is in agreement with the global conventions that protect the rights of the child. However, Germany prefers to interpret these according to the principles of European agreements, specifically the European Human Rights Convention and also in accordance with German Constitutional guarantees.

Greece

Greece has various laws and a number of measures and services to promote and advance the rights of children. In 2002, the Greek Parliament adopted a new law on human trafficking; in 2003 the juvenile system was reformed; in 2006 an additional law was created to combat intra-family violence which states a prohibition of corporal punishment of children.

United States

There is a long history of children's rights in the U.S.^{0/sup> Many children's rights advocates in the U.S. today advocate for a smaller agenda than their international peers. According to the U.S, for the purposes of the present Convention, a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier. Groups predominately focus on child abuse and neglect, child fatalities, foster care, youth aging out of foster care, preventing foster care placement, and adoption

Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, fro ...
.^{1/sup> A longstanding movement promoting youth rights in the United States has made substantial gains in the past. Refer to the
Convention of the Rights of a Child.

United Kingdom

The Children's Rights Movement assert that it is the case that children have rights which adults, states and government have a responsibility to uphold. The UK maintains a position that UNCRC is not legally enforceable and is hence 'aspirational' only - albeit a 2003 ECHR ruling states: "The human rights of children and the standards to which all governments must aspire in realizing these rights for all children are set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child." (Extract from Sahin v Germany, Grand Chamber judgment of the ECHR, July 8, 2003). 18 years after ratification, the four Children's Commissioners in the devolved administrations have united in calling for adoption of the Convention into domestic legislation, making children's rights legally enforceable..

Convention on the Rights of the Child

The United Nations

The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
Convention on the Rights of the Child has 54 articles, each outlining a different right. They cover four different groupings of rights; survival, protection, development and participation.
The Convention establishes a standard premise for the children's rights movement. It has been ratified by all but two countries; the United States and South Sudan

South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of th ...
.United Nations Treaty Collection.
Convention on the Rights of the Child
'. Retrieved 21 May 2009. The US administration under Bush opposed ratifying the convention, stating that there were "serious political and legal concerns that it conflicts with US policies on the central role of parents, sovereignty, and state and local law."

The convention is supplemented by the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (against military use of children) and the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (against sale of children, child prostitution

Child prostitution is prostitution involving a child, and it is a form of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The term normally refers to prostitution of a minor, or person under the legal age of consent.
In most jurisdictions, child p ...
and child pornography

Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a ...
).

Parental Rights

On October 7, 2020, the vote on United Nations Draft Resolution A/HRC/45/L.48/Rev.1 - "Rights of the child: Realizing the rights of the child through a healthy environment" submitted by Germany (on behalf of the European Union), Uruguay (on behalf of GRULAC) was adopted. The Russian Federation Amendments L.57 and L.64 to include Parental Rights were rejected.

Russian Federation, Ms. Kristina Sukacheva (Introduced L.57- L.64) Tasked with introducing the Convention language on parental rights, Russia ominously noted that governments voting against parents "deliberately shirk their international responsibilities to provide for the rights of the child".

At the time of adoption, Uruguay stated that the incorporation of parental rights language, added by the Russian Federation, would "bring imbalance to the resolution and would also go against the spirit of the resolution". The assertion that parents knock children's rights out of "balance" directly contravenes the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the international community's most ratified treaty, which references parents, and their rights, repeatedly. Notably, the Russian addition was sourced word for word from the convention.

Children in power

Presently, there are at least thirty countries that have some kind of non-adult structure of parliament, whether nationally or in cities, villages or schools. Many children's parliaments, especially in wealthier nations, are oriented more toward children's education in politics than toward the actual exercise of power in adult political systems.

On the other hand, some children's parliaments do exercise a degree of political power. One of the first children's parliaments, set up in the 1990s in village schools in Rajasthan, India, involves children aged six to fourteen electing child representatives who have been able to make genuine differences for their communities. Some children's parliaments, such as in the city of Barra Mansa in Brazil, have extensive powers over children's issues and control parts of the government budget.(Wall, J., & Dar, A., 2011 p.597,598)

There are also private institutions which are largely governed by children, for instance democratic schools

This is a list of some of the current and former democratic schools around the world. This list also includes sub-branches of democratic schools such as Sudbury schools inspired by the Sudbury Valley School and certain anarchistic free schools ...
(including Sudbury schools

A Sudbury school is a type of school, usually for the K-12 age range, where students have complete responsibility for their own education, and the school is run by a direct democracy in which students and staff are equal citizens. Students use the ...
).

See also

* Children's rights

Children's rights are a subset of human rights with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to minors.
* Global Movement for Children The Global Movement for ChildrenGlobal Movement for Children
. Gmfc.org (2011-04-26). Retrieved ...

* Timeline of children's rights in the United States
* Timeline of children's rights in the United Kingdom
* Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action

The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (VDPA) is a human rights declaration adopted by consensus at the World Conference on Human Rights on 25 June 1993 in Vienna, Austria. The position of United Nations High Commissioner for Human ...

*Youth Rights

The youth rights movement (also known as youth liberation) seeks to grant the rights to young people that are traditionally reserved for adults, due to having reached a specific age or sufficient maturity. This is closely akin to the notion o ...

Notes

References

*Children's rights. (2010, Oct 12). Retrieved from
https://web.archive.org/web/20141229162628/http://www.globalfootprints.org/issues/local/children/childrights.htm

*Gooch, L. (2012, Nov 26). Calls to end child marriages in Malaysia after 12-year-old
weds. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/world/asia/calls-to-end-child-marriages-in-malaysia-after-12-year-old-weds.html?_r=0

*Honorable Poe Ted. (2011, April 4). Loc.gov. Retrieved from
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/child-rights/index.php

*Joseph M. Hawes, ''The Children's Rights Movement: A History of Advocacy and Protection'' (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991).

*ROOSE, R., & BOUVERNE-DE BIE, M. (2007). Do Children Have Rights or Do Their
Rights Have to be Realised? The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as a Frame of Reference for Pedagogical Action. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 41(3), 431–443. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9752.2007.00568.x

*Rojas Flores, J. (2007
"The rights of the child in Chile: an historical view, 1910-1930"
''Historia. 40.''3. Special issue.
*Wall, J., & Dar, A. (2011). Children's Political Representation: The Right to Make a
Difference. International Journal of Children's Rights, 19(4), 595–612. doi:10.1163/157181811X547263

External links

Global Movement for Children

Red Latino-americana y Caribeña por la defensa de los derechos de los niños y niñas y adolescentes , REDLAMYC

World Vision

Plan International

Enda Tiers Monde

Save the Children

UNICEF

{{Family rights

Ageism}}