Children's Rights

Thoughts on Children's Rights

Aid and advocacy groups address contemporary children's rights to both safety and empowerment in four central arenas.

First, children have a right to be protected from exploitation. Children as young as 6 years old are compelled and coerced, through kidnapping or other forms of violence, to participate as armed combatants in military conflicts. Orphans or survivors of natural disaster are “adopted” into guerrilla training camps for indoctrination and combat training, or kidnapped from displaced persons camps and fragmented post-conflict or disaster communities. Amnesty International and other human rights groups and some state governments actively oppose these practices by implementing nonassistance policies against nations that use child soldiers in conflicts, and encourage other states to do so. Still others have suggested that children in the contemporary context are entitled [Page 277]to environmental rights-that they have a right to inherit a safe, livable natural environment and that it is the responsibility of adults to make sure that appropriate environmental action takes place to ensure the quality of this inheritance.

Second, children have a right to education. This speaks to making sure girls and young women have access to free, equal, and empowering educational experiences; that elementary education be free and compulsory; and that schools be protected from becoming targets for political or military aggression. In addition, it is important that schools work to make human rights part of the curriculum. In this way, children can be informed about their basic rights and responsibilities and will see and understand the necessity for protecting the rights of others.

Third, children have a right to special legal consideration. International law forbids the use of capital punishment on offenders who committed their crime when they were younger than 21 years.

Finally, children have a right to safety and security, both physical and emotional. Children should be the first to receive aid and accommodation, including nutritional, emotional, and material considerations. According to Human Rights Watch, children living with human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) are at risk for exploitation and death through severely limited access to healthcare, as well as other practices that contribute to their and other children's initial exposure to HIV.

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