Children rights is a human rights issue that involves the special rights of children and their particular needs for care, protection, and development. Many countries have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which recognises a wide range of children’s rights, including, most centrally, the right to be considered as the primary consideration in all actions concerning them and the right to live and thrive.
The central argument of the liberationists is that denying children rights on the grounds that they lack the capacities that are a prerequisite for the possession of them shows a misunderstanding of what children are and of the relations that they stand in to adults, and that it therefore denies them a certain degree of moral standing. This view is normally expressed as the claim that children are not fully human unless they have their rights and are treated accordingly.
Children are a fundamental part of the world and deserve to be loved, safe, and educated. Millions of them, however, are not able to do so because they face poverty, violence, slavery, and abuse on a daily basis. This is an issue that we must take action on to ensure that every child is able to live and flourish.
In the modern context of human rights advocacy a variety of organisations exist to advocate for children’s rights, from international NGOs to local charities and social services groups. These organisations are concerned with a broad range of issues that affect children, such as ending juvenile incarceration without parole, stopping military use of children and eliminating corporal punishment in schools.
Almost all countries have ratified the UN Convention on Rights of the Child, first adopted in 1989. This accords children a broad range of rights, including the right to be registered immediately after birth, to a name, to acquire a nationality and, in cases where they are stateless, to access government assistance. The Convention also guarantees that children’s best interests should be the primary concern in all actions concerning them and that they have the right to be consulted in all decisions that directly affect them. This last right is a particularly important one because it ensures that children’s opinions are given due weight in decision making processes. It also helps to combat the widespread practice of child pornography and child labour. It is a vitally important principle that all countries should adhere to.