Rights or Protection?
Resume of Human Right's Declaration ( December 10, 1948 )
"The thirty articles which compose it enacts civic, politic, economic, social and cultural rights of each person. There is enacted the right to live, to the freedom and to the personal safety, to be treated with parity in front of law, without discrimination of any kind, to have an impartial and public lawsuit, to be considered innocent up to opposite is proof, to the freedom of movement, mind, conscience and faith, to the freedom of belief, speech and association. There is declared too that nobody could be done bondman or subjected to tortures or cruel, inhuman or degrading inflictions or treatments and that nobody will be halted, jailed or deported indiscriminately. There's enacted too that everyone have the right to have a nationality, to marriage, to possess of properties, to take role in owns country government, to work and to get a proper pay for it, to enjoy of rest free time and adequate conditions of life and to receive an education. There's contemplate, additionally, the everyone's right to constitute a labor union or to adhere it and to require asylum in circumstance of persecution"
This Declaration by itself could be suffice for every human being "without discriminations of any kind" but at certain moment they perceived there was a"different kind" of human beings, the child, for which it needed to do another declaration.
Complete versionè
Definition of "child":
'The Convention defines as a child every human being under 18, unless national laws recognize the age of majority earlier'.
It's the worse way to begin: could we consider the characteristic, the needs, the abilities of a one year old child with those of a 17 years old 'child'?
We could divide the man evolution in four big periods: the infancy, from birth up to around six years of age (completion of cerebral maturation); the childhood, from 6/7 up to 11/12 (beginning of puberty); the adolescence, up to 16/17 (completion of physical maturation); the adult age, from 16/17 in then. It's in psycho-biological terminus, not cultural or legal. Inside each band of ages there are many others stadiums of development characterized by different needs and abilities, but at least these four macro periods would need to be distinguished.
General Principles:
"States shall ensure each child enjoys full rights without discrimination or distinctions of any kind"
Absolutely correct and indisputable premise.
"The child's best interest shall be a primary consideration in all actions concerning children whether undertaken by public or private social institutions, courts, administrative authorities or legislative bodies"
The problem is: who decide what is better for the child? and, do we really now what is better for them?
"Every child has an inherent right to life and States shall ensure, to the maximum extent possible, child survival and development."
Obvious, even if it doesn't happen in real world...
"Children have the right to be heard"
But, after we had heard them, what? The adult is always who decide .
Sustantives provisions:
1-Civil rights and freedoms:
"...children have the right to freedom of expression, and the State shall respect their right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, subject to appropriate parental guidance."
An excellent article spoiled by the last phrase (...). Freedom of expression, thought, conscience and religion couldn't be affected by the want of other persons, we must give to the child the instruments to reason, not the ideas yet ready. This article doesn't recognize the child's freedom, but the parent's right to impose their ideas, conscience and religion to the child.
"...children also have the right to freedom of association and to be protected against interference with their privacy"
Could a child currently have privacy or a private life? Could he avoid interference from his parents, relatives, teachers, social assistants, etc, etc, etc? How does he do to have freedom of association if he must ask the consent from parents, relatives, teachers, social assistants, etc, etc, etc?
"...no child shall be subjected to torture, or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Both capital punishment and life imprisonment without the possibility of release are prohibited for offenses committed by persons below 18 years."
Shouldn't it be as for any human being? It's the only point which this Declaration is better than the other!!
2-Family environment and parental guidance:
"...the Convention gives parents a joint and primary responsibility for raising their children..." "...children should not be separated from their parents, unless this is deemed to be in the child's best interest." "...the Convention obliges the State to provide special protection for children deprived of a family environment..."
This article talk about the right of parents to 'own' the child, and, when they haven't a family, the State will be the 'owner' of the child. Remarkable!
3-Basic Health and welfare of children.
"...the right to the highest attainable standard of health... and to a standard of living adequate..."
Read it, excellent article. This article should be applied for every human being, every day of their lives.
4. Education, leisure and recreation.
"...children have a right to education, and it is the State's responsibility to ensure that primary education shall be free and compulsory, that discipline in school should respect the child's dignity; and that the aims of education are geared towards developing children's personalities as well as their mental and physical abilities to the fullest extent..."
If something is obligatory it's not a right, and, the obligatorily exclude the pleasure, fundamental element for an individuality harmonic development and learning.
"...education should foster respect for parents, cultural identity, language and values ..."
Again, imposition of ideas, preconceived and cultural packets yet ready for use, rendering them deathless generation to generation, avoiding the change, consolidating the system.
This theme is treatise deepen in Education .
5-Special protection measures:
a) In situations of armed conflict: "...State parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that children under 15 years of age take no direct part in hostilities and that no child below 15 is recruited into the armed forces.."
Hypocrite concession to militarism. Before they talk about 'child' of 17, instead now ....
Each armed conflict should be avoided. To kill is to kill at 14 like at 30. Die is always die, at any age.
b)In situations where children are in conflict with the law: "...have the right to treatment that promotes their dignity and self-worth , and also takes the child's age into account and aims at his or her reintegration into society..."
In this case we have to take into account the child's age, well, but: Why in others articles of the Convention it doesn't happen?. The porpous of any detain punishment should be the reintegration into society, at any age. If it doesn't so, it become a revenge.
c) In situations of exploitation: "children have the right to be protected from economic exploitation and from work that threatens their health, education or development ..." ".. states shall set minimum ages ..."
...must they be protected from exploitation or from work? How would be risen Europe after World War II° without work of kids helping their families to survive? Ask it to your grandparents. Won't you wish, maybe, eliminate the low cost handiwork of underdeveloped countries? Instead, why don't obliges the states to recognize them the worker's rights, to allow them work in protected manner when they need it? Why coerce them to cadge, to be exploited, to prostitute?
"...have the right to protection from the use of narcotic and psychotropic drugs, as well as from being involved in their production or distribution..."
Give them a reason to doesn't use it and a job to don't sell them self to traffickers.
"...the state shall protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse, including prostitution and involvement in pornography..."
It speak about the right to protection from abuses, but about the right to sexuality there's no word. A new hypocrisy. This theme comes treated in section Feelings
d In situations of children belonging to a minority or an indigenous group.
Minorities have to be protected always, not because minorities but because human beings.