short essay on child rights

Essay on Child Rights

We live in a society. When people have built a society, they made rules and laws for that society. Some laws and rules are made by the government, while others are made by the people who live in the country. This includes laws that are necessary for the healthy survival of humans. We have some rights that help us to live peacefully. Similarly, there are also some rights for children which are referred to as child rights. Today, we will discuss Child Rights in detail.

Short and Long Child Rights Essay in English

Here, we are presenting short and long short essays on Child Rights in English for students under word limits of 100 – 150 Words, 200 – 250 words, and 500 – 600 words. This topic is useful for students of classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 in English. These provided essays on Child Rights will help you to write effective essays, paragraphs, and speeches on this topic.

 Child Rights Essay 10 Lines (100 – 150 Words)

1) Children have some basic human rights as adults which are referred to as child rights.

2) Every child has rights, irrespective of their age, race, gender, or where they were born.

3) Child rights are important for the physical and mental growth of children.

4) Rights to education, rights to survival, right health, etc are some child rights.

5) Child rights are essential to set up a good environment for children.

6) It is also important for the development of the nation.

7) In 1989, the United Nations Convention on Child Rights was passed.

8) Children are human beings who should have their rights.

9) Child rights are important to save children from exploitation.

10) We should protect child’s rights and fight issues like child labor and harassment.

Short Essay on Child Rights (250 – 300 Words)

Introduction

Even though there has been a lot of progress in the last few decades, millions of children still don’t have their basic rights. Terms like child labor, and harassment is getting common these days. Children also have the right to extra protection because they are more likely to be used or abused.

What is meant by Child Rights?

Child rights are the fundamental rights that are provided to every child for their proper growth and development. Children have the right to be with their parents and to have a human identity. They also have the right to physical protection, food, education, health care, and criminal laws that are right for their living. Children also have the right to equal protection of their civil rights and to not be treated differently because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, or color.

Need for Child Rights

When children’s rights are protected, they have a much better chance of growing up in society. During a war, a lot of children are hurt in big ways. Most of the time, children have to work in places that are very dangerous and unhealthy. They end up not being able to read or write, and they don’t have any skills. Because of this, they become criminals. These rights will protect them from the different kinds of abuse they might face in their lives.

Child rights are the human rights of children, with a focus on their rights to safety and opportunity. Like adults, they too have a life. People should follow the rules and care for child rights.

Long Essay on Child Rights (500 Words)

Every child deserves to have a full childhood, where they are cared for by their families and communities. They need an environment safe from violence, that gives them the chance to grow and do well like other kids. Surrounding majorly affects a child’s health and development. India has more than a billion people, and more than millions of them are children. It has more children than any other country. They are an important part of society. Like other humans, they also need some basic rights to live peacefully.

History of Child Rights

After World War I, the League of Nations, which would later become the UN, wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It included the rights to life, food, shelter, education, freedom of speech and religion, justice, and peace. In 1959, the “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child” tried for the first time to make sure that children were safe from abuse. It came up with 10 principles. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was made in 1989, and many countries have signed it. This convention gives children a lot of different rights. This UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is very important for making sure children’s rights are respected.

Importance of Child Rights

Children are the world’s future. They are the ones who will be able to help the country grow and improve. So, it is important to protect the rights of every child. In many places, children have to deal with dirty places to live, bad health care, lack of safe water and housing, and damage to the environment. Because of all these things, children are left on the streets and don’t have a good place to live. They are the most vulnerable resource in the world. They can reach their fullest potential in a safe environment where children’s rights are respected. Therefore, they should have the right to a good education, good health, and good food.

What are Child Rights

The Convention on the Rights of the Child says that child rights are part of international law. It says that all children should be treated in a fair, equal, and dignified way. The UN General Assembly has made these rights universal claims, which means that anyone who discriminates against or hurts a child can be punished.

Some fundamental child rights are listed below:

• Right to Education
• Right to Survival
• Right to Participation
• Right to Development
• Right to Health
• Right to Protected from Violence
• Right to a Family Life
• Right to an Opinion
• Right to be protected from Exploitation

Every child has a right to live on this Earth. Government has to make sure that children can use the rights they have. Moreover, we should also make sure that we do everything we can to protect the most vulnerable people in our communities. We can keep them safe from harm, child labor, and war. We can help them build a better future for themselves and for the upcoming generations.

I hope the above provided essays on Child Rights will be helpful in understanding the importance of child rights and the need to protect them.

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions on Child Rights

Ans.  Every year on 20 November, Child Rights Day is celebrated in India.

Ans.  The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as any person under the age of 18.

Ans.  World Children’s Day is celebrated on 20 November every year.

Ans. There are many challenges to child rights like poverty, culture, environment, neglectful family, etc.

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Essay on Child Rights for Students in English [500+ Words]

January 3, 2021 by Sandeep

Essay on Child Rights: The sound development of a child in terms of physical, mental, emotional and social growth is the essential right of every child. Children can express their claim to these rights without any hesitation. Right to education is also a fundamental right, and these factors have been placed on world agenda tables. The UN General Assembly has adopted these rights as universal claims, and any form of discrimination/ violence against children can attract penal action against offenders.

Essay on Child Rights 500 Words in English

Below we have provided Child Rights Essay in English, suitable for class 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10.

Child rights are the sub-category of human rights catering, especially to the children in terms of their health, education, recreation, family, etc. It also highlights their development and age-appropriate needs that change a passage of time. Three general principles foster all children’s rights,

Non-discrimination – under this, every child is treated equally and has a right to strengthen their potential at all times. For instance, every child will gain access to education irrespective of its gender, nationality, caste, disability or another status.

Opinion of the child – the child wants to be heard and understood; that’s why the voice of the children is pivotal in their overall development. For example, the parents or the elders of the house should take into consideration their children’s needs before making decisions that will further cause damage.

Right to inclusive education – A child with a disability should receive equal access to training and development without being neglected.

United Nation Convention has listed the below rights for the children who come under the age of 18. These rights embody the freedom of children, favourable family environment, leisure, education, health care and cultural activities.

Right to Survival

• Right to live with respect.
• Right to be born.
• Right to have access to basic food, clothing and shelter.

Right to Protection

• Right to be protected from violence.
• Right to be protected from drugs.
• Right to be protected from exploitation.
• Right to be protected from abandon.

Right to Participation

• Right to freedom of voice.
• Right to freedom of expression.
• Right to freedom to form an association.
• Right to information.

Right to Development

• Right to learn and explore.
• Right to rest and play.
• Right to seek education.
• Right to overall development-emotional, physical and psychological.

Significance of Children’s Rights

Children’s are not a commodity or an item to be owned by the parents or the society, but an individual who possesses equal status as a member of the human race. They have their likes and dislikes, which assists them to harness their energy for future growth. Parents can love, care and nurture children through guidance and advice gradually. They need to be thrust towards independence continuously. The sense of accountability needs to be developed by providing necessary tasks so that they realize their value and voice.

The course of their progress determines the future of the children and the country as a whole. The devastating changes like climate change, globalisation, the disintegration of the family, mass migration, etc. affects children to a massive level crippling their identity and social welfare. In situations like armed conflict and other national emergencies, the conditions worsen. Children are vulnerable and susceptible to health risks. The repercussions of disease, malnutrition and poverty endanger their future potential.

They fall prey to sordid living conditions, poor health-care, lack of safe water and housing and environmental damage. Because of all these reasons, children are deprived of the proper home as they are left on the streets. Not only the government but also the citizens of the nation should take charge of enhancing their requirements and taking an initiative to bring change. It is paramount to show respect and appreciation towards children as it helps them to develop healthy mentally. By doing so, their personality is not disabled, and they feel part of society.

10 Lines on Child Rights

• The declaration of Child’s Right was established in the year 1924.
• The rights were formulated by saving the children founder, Eglantyne Jebb.
• The most important rights are- survival, developmental, protection and participation rights.
• It is an extension of human rights, especially for children below 18 years of age.
• These rights emphasize on the age-appropriate needs.
• The violation of the rights includes violence, poverty, and discrimination.
• The United Nation Convention has further elaborated the rights for better understanding and knowledge.
• Through these rights, the government is encouraging people to contribute through donations, adoption and sponsorship.
• Also, these rights stress on having their opinion and say in every decision taken for their betterment.
• The government, through its efforts, is urging people to be vigilant around what is happening and report if there is any violation regarding the rights of the children.

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Children’s Rights

‘In present-day political and moral philosophy the idea that all persons are in some way moral equals has become dogma’ (Steinhoff ed. 2015, xi). Yet in the collection of essays from whose Introduction this quotation comes and that seeks to explain and justify this foundational ‘dogma’, ‘children’ does not figure in its index and are barely discussed if at all. Whilst children are thought of as human beings and thus having a moral status such that it would be wrong to treat them in certain ways, it is also thought reasonable that there are things children may not do that adults may. In short, children are humans but not persons morally equal to adults. This is nowhere clearer than when considering what in law children are permitted or entitled to do as well as prevented from doing. In most jurisdictions, for instance, children are not allowed to vote, to marry, to buy alcohol, to have sex, or to engage in paid employment. Then there are things that should not be done to children because they are children, such as conscription into military service. Why should that be the case?

One very obvious way in which this issue of what distinguishes children from adults can be addressed is by asking the following questions, Do children have rights? If so, do they have all the rights that adults have and do they have rights that adults do not have? If they do not have rights how do we ensure that they are treated in the morally right way? Most jurisdictions accord children legal rights. Most countries—though not the United States of America—have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which was first adopted in 1989. The Convention accords to children a wide range of rights including, most centrally, the ‘inherent right to life’ (Article 6), and the right of a child “who is capable of forming his or her own views … to express these views freely in all matters affecting the child” (Article 12) (United Nations 1989).

However, it is normal to distinguish between ‘positive’ rights, those that are recognised in law, and ‘moral’ rights, those that are recognised by some moral theory. That children have ‘positive’ rights does not then settle the question of whether they do or should have moral rights. Nevertheless, there are at least good political reasons why one might think that the UNCRC provides an exemplary statement—in the language of positive rights—of how children should be treated and regarded. The idea of children as rights holders has been subject to different kinds of philosophical criticism. There has also been philosophical consideration of what kinds of rights children have if they do have any rights at all. The various debates shed invaluable light on both the nature and value of rights, and on the moral status of children.

The question of how the putative rights of children stand in relation to the rights of those adults who, arguably, have rights over children broaches the issues of parental rights and responsibilities which is not discussed here. (See the entry on procreation and parenthood .)

1. Children and Rights

2. critics of children’s rights, 3. liberationism, 4. arbitrariness, 5. children’s rights and adult rights, 6. the child’s right to grow up, 7. best interests, 8. children and the reproduction of values, 9. the right to be heard, 10. summary, references cited, other important work, other internet resources, related entries.

In the background of any consideration of children and rights are two matters: what counts as a child, and what is to be understood as capacity. The latter arises inasmuch as the question of whether children have rights and, if so, which ones normally turns on whether they have the relevant capacity.

What counts as a child and how we should understand ‘childhood’ are interesting philosophical questions. They are considered at length in Part I of Archard (2015). (See also the entry on childhood .) We may usefully distinguish a concept from a conception of the child as follows: ‘to have a concept of “childhood” is to recognise that children differ interestingly from adults; to have a conception of childhood is to have a view of what those interesting differences are’ (Archard 2015, 32). Having made this distinction we should recognise that conceptions of childhood vary across time and cultures. Moreover, conceptions of childhood may beg normative questions of why children have a different moral status to adults. In what follows a child is understood simply as a human being at a certain chronological stage of development. For instance, Article 1 of the United Nations Convention defines a child as any human being below the age of eighteen years ‘unless,’ it adds, ‘under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier’ (United Nations 1989; Archard and Tobin 2019).

The concept of capacity is relevant to questions both of which theory of rights is correct as well as to which rights children might have. Other terms such as ‘competence’ and ‘ability’ are often used as if they were equivalent to ‘capacity’. However, it is important to be clear how ‘capacity’ is used (Cowden 2012). Here it is used as a dispositional concept. Someone has the capacity to do X if they could do X given the opportunity and in the appropriate circumstances. It is to be distinguished from an occurrent ability or competence to do X. Thus, a mature rational adult has the capacity to make autonomous choices, but may be temporarily unable to choose autonomously because, for instance, on this occasion their mind is disturbed, or their will is overborne. The notion of a child’s capacity should not be understood as meaning that they have it inasmuch as they would be able as an adult to do certain things. Nevertheless, the distinct claim – that allowing a child at some age to exercise a given right would encourage the acquisition of the qualifying capacity that is otherwise lacked – should be acknowledged and given due weight.

On the question of whether children have rights and which ones, some think it obvious that children do have rights and believe that the only interesting question is whether children possess all and only those rights which adults possess. Others are sceptical believing that given the nature both of rights and of children it is wrong to think of children as right-holders.

Fully and properly to address this issue it is necessary first to be clearer about the language of rights and to distinguish several different questions. First, we can inquire as to what it is for someone to have a right, or, put another way, we can ask what being a right-holder consists in.We can ask a second question, namely what must be true for there to be rights. That is, we can try to specify what have been called the ‘existence conditions for rights’ (Sumner 1987, 10–11). Third, we can ask what the different kinds of rights are. Finally, we can ask what the moral significance of having a right is, or what weight rights have. With regard to any acknowledged right we can identify it by means of its content (what is it a right to?) and its scope (who has it and against whom do they have it?), as well as its weight relative to other rights and to other moral considerations. Not all of these questions are relevant when we want to focus on the particular issue of whether or not children have rights, and, if so, which ones. However, the first question raised above is especially salient. In response, there are two competing theories whose respective virtues and vices have been extensively debated. In one camp is the will or choice theory (Hart 1973; Sumner 1987; Steiner 1994); in the opposing camp is the welfare or interest theory (MacCormick 1982; Raz 1984; Kramer 1998). The first theory sees a right as the protected exercise of choice. In particular to have a right is to have the power to enforce or waive the duty of which the right is the correlative. The second theory sees a right as the protection of an interest of sufficient importance to impose on others certain duties whose discharge allows the right-holder to enjoy the interest in question. It is natural to think that each theory is more appropriate for certain kinds of rights. The will theory fits rights actively to do things (to speak, to associate with others) whereas the interest theory fits rights passively to enjoy or not to suffer things (to receive health care, not to be tortured). However, the distinction between the theories of what it is to have a right is not, and does not coincide with the distinction between different kinds of rights, even if there are important relations between the two distinctions.

In this present context one alleged defect of the will theory is its exclusion of some humans from the category of right-holders. This is because whilst all humans, and perhaps many classes of non-humans such as animals, have interests that ought to be protected, not all humans have the capacity to exercise choice. Children—along with the severely mentally disabled and the comatose—cannot thus, on the will theory, be the holders of rights. For at least one prominent defender of the interest theory, the fact that children evidently do have rights is sufficient to display the falsity of the will theory, thus making children a ‘test-case’ for the latter (MacCormick 1982). Of course, someone who is convinced of the correctness of the will theory might readily concede that the theory entails the denial of rights to children but see no reason to abandon the theory. For her, the entailment is not, ‘Children have rights. Therefore, the will theory is false’. It is, ‘The will theory is true. Therefore, children cannot have rights’.

The following seven statements set out the arguments for the conclusions of the two competing theories of rights. 1 – 4 sets out the argument for the negative conclusion of the will theory, and 5 – 7 set out the argument for the positive conclusion of the interest theory:

• Rights are protected choices.
• Only those capable of exercising choices can be right-holders.
• Children are incapable of exercising choice.
• Children are not right-holders.
• Adults have duties to protect the important interests of children.
• Rights and duties are correlative.
• Children are right-holders.

(6) states an important view held by many that for each and every right there is a correlative duty. To say that I have a right to something is to say that someone else has a duty to me in respect of that thing. There may of course be some kinds of duties which do not correlate with any rights. Indeed, some critics of children’s rights will concede that adults have duties to protect important interests of children but deny that these interests correlate with rights held by children. (7) is thus true only insofar as the duties adults have in respect of children are such that they do correlate with rights held by children.

(3) is obviously a contestable, and contested, claim. But insofar as children cannot exercise choice and are required to do so on the will theory if they are to have rights, then it follows that they cannot have rights.

The upshot of setting the two theories out in this fashion is as follows: either children have rights, in which case the will theory cannot be true; or they do not, in which case that theory could be true.

However, a will theorist who did not want to deny that children have rights might resist affirming (2). This could be done by accepting that children are themselves incapable of exercising choice but allowing that children might have representatives or proxies, such as most obviously their parents or guardians, who could exercise the choices on behalf of the children. The representatives would choose for the children as the children would choose if they were capable of choosing for themselves. This proxy exercise of choice would take place only during the period when the children were incapable of exercising choice and in acknowledgment of the fact that the children will eventually be capable of exercising their own choices. The will theory’s most prominent defender (Hart 1973, 184 n.86) makes just such a modification of the will theory in respect of children.

Now such a modification must meet a number of challenges. First, how should the representatives be selected? Should those empowered to act as representatives be those who are most likely to choose as the children would choose if capable, or are there are other independent grounds on which they are selected—such as, most obviously, that they are the child’s parents? Second, if we think of such representation as a trust whose beneficiaries are children and whose trustees are the adults choosing for children, are the terms of the trust sufficiently clear and determinate? Is it, for instance, perspicuous and evident what a child would choose if capable of choosing? Note that the criterion is not what is in the best interests of the child for, consistent with the will theory, we must appeal to choices rather than interests. It is sometimes difficult to say what some adult who cannot currently choose—because she is, for instance, temporarily comatose—would choose if able. It is impossibly hard in the case of someone, a child, who is for the period of childhood simply incapable of making any choices. Third, how is the trust to be enforced and by whom? The representative may be presumed to have a duty to choose as the child would choose if able. If rights are correlative with duties then someone other than the representative and the child must be in a position to enforce or waive this duty. Could this be the state or its representative?

If the will theory can meet these formidable challenges, it can accord rights to children who are not then a straightforward ‘test-case’ for determining which theory of rights is correct. Moreover, the will theorist can make two further points. First, she might accept (6)—that rights and duties are correlative—but deny or at least significantly modify (5)—that adults have duties to protect the important interests of children. She could say that the duties that are rightly specified under (5) are not the duties that correlate with rights. This is just to say, as all rights theorists will repeatedly say, that rights do not exhaust the moral domain. What we are obligated to do because others have rights against us is not everything we must morally do. (6) asserts that for each and every right there is a correlate duty. It is not the eminently disputable claim that for each and every duty there is a correlate right. So, we should, as adults, ensure that the interests of children are protected and promoted. It would not follow that in consequence they have rights against us.

Second a will theorist might accept (5) and (6) as they stand but say that the rights which correlate with these duties are possessed not by the children but by adults who are in the best position to protect the children. Thus, even if the duties adults have in respect of children do correlate with rights it does not follow that the rights in question are held by those whose interests they protect. Indeed, it might be argued that it does not matter whether the rights are possessed by those whose interests they protect. Hillel Steiner thus asks rhetorically, Does it really matter whether the rights that correlate with adult duties to children are held by the children or by those who would act as best they could for the children? (Steiner 1998, 261).

This review of the will and interest theories has simply examined the issue of whether the denial of children’s rights can be thought of as a test case for the probity of the will theory. There may of course be other considerations that tell against the will theory and in favour of the interest theory; or the converse.

Grant that on either account of what it is to have a right children could, in principle, be the holders of rights. Ought children to have rights? And, if so, what rights should they have? Note that the rights can be moral or legal. Children do have rights in law (under the UN Convention most notably). These need not be accepted as moral rights. However, someone could believe that the best way, on balance, to protect the interests of children is by continuing to accord them the legal rights they have under something like the Convention. Someone might also believe that children should have legal rights but not those they are currently accorded. Conversely, if children do have moral rights, these need not be enshrined in law, although there would evidently be a strong presumption that they should. In the first instance, the question is whether children should have moral rights. If they should, then there would be a good case for thinking that these should be legally protected rights.

Those who claim that children should have all the rights that adults presently have are called ‘liberationists’ (to be discussed in the next section) and include Holt, Farson and Cohen (Farson 1974; Holt 1975; Cohen 1980). We can distinguish real from rhetorical liberationists. The latter are those who see the demand for equal rights for children as a means both of drawing attention to the discrimination that children suffer by comparison with adults in their treatment and for improving their condition. A rhetorical liberationist does not actually believe that children should be the equals of adults. Rather, he thinks that claiming as much is the best way of advancing their interests. A real liberationist does view children as the equals of adults. Then there are those who think that children should have some but not all of the rights which adults have. Finally, there are those who think that children should not have any rights. Or, put less brusquely, they are sceptical, for theoretical and political reasons, about attributing rights to children. Their case is made in three ways. The first is to assert what liberationists deny, namely that children are not qualified, as adults are, to have rights. The second is to argue that the ascription of rights to children is inappropriate because it displays a misunderstanding of what childhood is, what children are like, or what relationships children stand in to adults. The third is to argue that, notwithstanding their lack of rights, children can be assured of adequate moral protection by other means.

With respect to the first claim, the question of qualification is the question of whether children have the requisite capacity for rights. On the will theory of rights the relevant capacity qualifying children for possession of rights is that of the ability to choose. But there is a more general issue of capacity that is in dispute whatever theory of rights is defended and that follows from attention to the fact that rights have a content. Each right is a right to do, to be, or to have something. Arguably, only those rights can be possessed whose content can be appropriately attributed to their owners. A right to free speech cannot properly be possessed by an entity incapable of speech. One conventional way to think of rights in terms of their content is to distinguish between freedom rights (rights to choose, such as to vote, practise a religion, and to associate) and welfare rights (rights that protect important interests such as health).

Children in general lack certain cognitive abilities—to acquire and to process information in an ordered fashion, to form consistent and stable beliefs, to appreciate the significance of options and their consequences. They also lack certain volitional abilities—to form, retain and act in the light of consistent desires, and to make independent choices. Children are not unique amongst humans in this respect. Those adults who are seriously mentally impaired are also disqualified in this sense, which is of course just to say that these adults are childlike. Children are unique in the following regard. Not all humans are seriously mentally impaired, but all humans were once children. Thus every one of us was, during our early years, not qualified to be a holder of rights even if now we are so qualified.

It is worth distinguishing – as Schapiro (1999, 2003) does – between two ways in which a child is, relative to an adult, incapable. Schapiro argues that childhood is a ‘normative predicament’ wherein the child is in a state of nature, lacking any independent will whereby she might authoritatively and in her own voice order her desires. She is an ‘instinctual wanton’. On her account, the capacities a child lacks are not those of making good choices, but those of making any choices as such.

A child’s incapacity, in the senses indicated above, would seem to disqualify them from having liberty rights. Someone incapable of choosing cannot have a right whose content is a fundamental choice. If, as some maintain, all human rights are best interpreted as protecting human agency and its preconditions, then it would follow that those incapable of agency, such as young children, should not be accorded human rights (Griffin 2002). On the other hand, it could be maintained that, whilst children lack agency, they certainly have fundamental interests meriting protection and thus at least have welfare rights (Brighouse 2002). Moreover, it can be important to recognise that children become beings capable of making choices and that rights may be attributed in recognition of this gradual development (Brennan 2002).

The second claim that may be made in denying rights to children is that the ascription of rights to children is inappropriate because it displays a misunderstanding of what childhood is, of what children are like, or of what relationships children do or ought to stand in to adults. This claim comes in various forms.

On one view we should start our thinking about what morally we owe to children by specifying our obligations as adults to them (O’Neill 1988). There certainly exist what are called perfect obligations. These are obligations that are either owed to all children or to some specified set of children. They are perfect in that it is completely specified whom they are owed to and what is owed to them. We all are obliged not to maltreat any child, and parents have a particular duty to care for their children. But then there are imperfect obligations which are those of caring for children to whom we do not, as parents for instance, have specific obligations. All adults owe these, but they are not owed to all children (how could they possibly be?) nor is it specified what precisely is owed to them. The obligations are imperfect because which children we should care for is not specified nor is it specified precisely what is owed to them. Both are left to individual discretion, depending in part on circumstances.

Perhaps then we can agree that we are all under a duty to prevent the abuse of children. But clearly we cannot, as individuals, each act to stop every child being abused. Moreover what we ought to do—for instance, by reporting suspected cases of abuse—will depend on the circumstances, and also on what is in place by way of particular institutions and laws to deal with child abuse.

Crucially whilst perfect obligations correlate with rights, imperfect obligations do not. This means that anyone who starts and finishes thinking about what morally is owed to children in terms of their rights is unable to capture what imperfect obligations express. Yet this is to miss much of what is most important about the way in which, morally, we should as adults stand in relation to children. For the fulfilment of these imperfect duties of care and concern is what centrally protects and promotes the lives of children as children. Thinking ethically about children’s lives in terms of their putative rights is to misperceive what is of central importance and value in these lives.

One possible response to O’Neill’s argument is as follows (Coady 1992). She does not deny that perfect obligations correlate with rights. Thus, to the extent that we do have perfect obligations to children, they do have corresponding rights. Yet O’Neill denies that imperfect obligations correlate with rights. But why should we think that? The imperfect obligations are fundamental ones. They are not supererogatory, that is beyond duty. Adults must show consideration and kindness to children in general. So why cannot children claim such kindness and consideration from adults as their right? O’Neill does say that when imperfect obligations are institutionalised—when, for instance there are laws and institutions specifying who should act and how to detect and prevent child abuse—there are created positive special obligations to which correspond positive rights. But she adds that the obligations of, say, the social worker exceed the positive obligations associated with her job. However this is true of all our obligations, whether perfect or imperfect. A parent can have positive, that is legally recognised and sanctioned, duties to her child. Yet her perfect obligations to her children are not exhaustively specified by what the law requires of her.

O’Neill’s argument does not rely on any specification of the content of the obligations that might be owed by adults to children. Rather it is about the structure of our moral reasoning in respect of children, and the priority—false in the argument’s view—that is given to rights. As an argument it thus bears some comparison with a view that expresses general scepticism about rights in the context of adult-child relations and which emphasises the particular character of the family (Schrag 1980; Schoeman 1980). This view draws attention to the quality and nature of the relationships within a family. These are marked by an especial intimacy and by deep, unconditional love between its members. One can grant that many families do not conform to this ideal and yet acknowledge that when the family does conform to the ideal it is a distinctive, and distinctively valuable, form of human association.

What arguably follows from this ideal of the family is the inappropriateness of asserting or claiming rights. For to do so would be to subvert and ultimately destroy what constitutes the family as the distinctive form of human association it is. Appeal is being made here to a familiar and oft-drawn distinction between two ways in which individuals engaged in a common enterprise or bound together in some enduring association can be assured of their beneficent, or at least minimally good, treatment of one another. One way is by the recognition—in law or custom or shared morality—of rights that all individuals can claim, or by rules of justice—similarly and generally recognised—which provide an assurance of fair treatment. Another way is by reliance on the dispositions or attitudes that the individuals bound together have—spontaneously and naturally—towards one another. Thus, for instance, if each is motivated by general benevolence in respect of all then no one has any need to claim or assert what is due to him as of right or rule. In the case of the family, it is argued, neither justice nor benevolence suffices but love does. Of course children may have rights against those who are not family members (a right, for instance, that their school teachers provide them with information and skills). Some rights are held against particular individuals. Others, including the most important ones, are held against everyone, including parents and other family members

A further and quite distinct allegation is that not only is there no need for any such claims, but that allowing them to be made will erode, and in due course destroy, the dispositions and attitudes that rendered the need for rights and rules of justices unnecessary in the first place. This further claim is an influential one in the general critique communitarianism makes, within political philosophy, of what is characterised as a rights-based and individualistic liberalism (see, for instance, Sandel 1982, 32–5). In the context of the family the claim is that granting its members rights will subvert and bring about the end of the love between them that made rights superfluous in the first place.

The arguments considered thus far have appealed to the role that rights generally do and should play in our moral lives. A further argument considers what would actually follow from granting rights to children (Purdy 1992). The argument is that we need as adults to have acquired certain traits of character if we are to be able to pursue our goals and lead a valuable life. To acquire these traits it is essential that we not be allowed as children to make our own choices. Granting children the liberty to exercise rights is destructive of the preconditions for the possibility of having fulfilling adult lives. The central, and empirical, premise in this argument is that children do not spontaneously and naturally grow into adults. They need to be nurtured, supported, and, more particularly, subjected to control and discipline. Without that context giving children the rights that adults have is bad for the children. It is also bad for the adults they will turn into and for the society we share as adults and children.

The defence of the view that children should not, as the liberationist asserts, have all the rights that adults have has rested on the claims that, first, children lack the capacities that qualify adults for the possession of rights, and, second, that talk of children’s rights does not capture the truth about their lives or about the family or encourages a destructive permissiveness that has poor consequences for adults and their society. The third step in defence of the denial of rights to children is to provide reassurance that such a denial is not bad for children.

One can thus maintain that rights do not exhaust the moral domain. There are things we ought to do which do not correspond to the obligations we have as the correlates of rights. As adults we should protect and promote the welfare of children. It need not follow that they have rights against us.

To those who insist that children should, like other historically disadvantaged and discriminated groups, be emancipated by according them rights the reply (O’Neill 1988, 459– 463) is that such talk about rights talk misses what is distinctively different about children as a group. This is that childhood is not a permanently maintained status associated with oppression or discrimination. It is rather a stage of human development which all go through. Moreover the adults who deny that children do have rights may nevertheless also believe that it is their duty to ensure that the children for whom they have care do pass from childhood into adulthood.

The first claim in the defence of the denial of rights to children is that children are disqualified by virtue of their incapacity to have rights. Liberationists dispute this. Liberationists can allow that the key to the appropriateness of giving or not giving rights to children turns on capacity (Cohen 1980, ix). They will argue, however, that children are not disqualified from having rights by virtue of their lack of a capacity that adults do have. Note that on this view children are entitled to both welfare and freedom rights whereas those who concede that children lack the latter in virtue of a certain incapacity can still insist that they ought to have welfare rights where such an incapacity is not relevant. There are two respects in which this liberationist case might be modified or qualified. The first is in its scope. The liberationist might claim that all children are qualified to have rights, or she might claim only that some children are so qualified. The latter is the more plausible position in view of the fact that the very young infant is evidently incapacitated. Indeed some liberationists seem to recognise as much even whilst they insist that every child should have rights (Farson 1974, 31, 172, and 185). If the scope of the liberationist claim is thus limited it does not amount to the view that no line dividing human rights holders from humans who lack rights should be drawn. Rather it is the view that such a line has been drawn in the wrong place.

A second possible qualification of the liberationist view is that giving rights to children will play an important part in their acquiring the qualifying capacity. It is not thus argued that children are capable now and are illegitimately denied their rights. It is rather that they will only—or at least will more readily or will at an earlier stage—acquire that capacity if given their rights. The denial of rights to children is, on this account, one significant element in a culture that serves artificially to maintain children in their childlike state of dependence, vulnerability, and immaturity. Again the qualification can concede that children of a very young age are not capable enough to have rights, and will not acquire that capacity even if given rights. Yet it insists that the denial of rights to children of a certain age on account of their alleged incapacity is simply self-confirming. They cannot have rights because they are incapable but they are incapable only because they do not have these rights.

One plausible version of the claim refers to the facts of experience. Children, or at least children of a certain age, may not differ markedly from adults in respect of their cognitive and volitional capacities. They may be as capable as older humans of making their own minds up about what to do and be as independent in their resolution to act on their choices. But they may simply not have had as much experience of the world as their adult counterparts. Being thus naïve and inexperienced in the ways of the world they will not be as able, that is as qualified, as older (and wiser) humans are to make sensible choices. Grant that such a lack of experience can be attributed to a lack of opportunities to exercise choice. If such a lack of opportunity is in turn attributable not simply to not having been around for as long but to a denial of the freedom to make their own choices, then there is a powerful case for liberty rights being extended, even if cautiously, to these young people.

There are different ways in which the liberationist claim about capacity—whether qualified or not—can be made. One is by defending a ‘thin’ definition of capacity. For example it may be said that children can make choices if what this means is expressing preferences. Of course the response is that the ability to choose, thus minimally defined, is indeed possessed by children (even fairly young children), but it is not a capacity sufficient to qualify for rights ownership. What is needed for that is more than simply the ability to express or communicate a desire; what is needed is an ability to understand and appreciate the significance of the options facing one together with independence of choice. After all, the animal who moves from one feeding bowl to another may be said thereby to ‘choose’ the food in the latter bowl. But the animal does not have a general capacity of choice sufficient to qualify it as a holder of liberty rights.

Liberationists might move in the other direction and argue that the capacity which purportedly qualifies adults to have rights is in fact not a capacity that most, or perhaps any, adults possess. Thus, it will be said that no adult fully understands the nature of the choices she faces, nor is she consistent in her beliefs and desires, nor is she really independent of the influences of her environment and peers. Whether the liberationist urges a ‘thin’ definition of capacity—which the child satisfies as much as the adult—or argues that on a ‘thick’ definition of capacity neither adult nor child qualifies as capable, the point is the same. This is that the alleged differences between children and adults in respect of a qualifying capacity are not sufficient to warrant the ascription of rights to the latter and their denial to the former.

One way, then, to charge that age is an arbitrary means of distinguishing those qualified and those not qualified to have rights is that there is, in fact, no real division of capacities (Cohen 1980, 48). We should note that this claim can be supported by an ‘argument from marginal cases’, one that has been most influentially used in the case of animal rights. The argument in that context is that for whatever capacity is argued to distinguish the moral status of humans from animals there will be marginal cases – some humans will fail to possess it (Singer 1975, 265). In the present context, the argument would be that some older children display those abilities that supposedly distinguish children in general from adults (and some adults do not display those abilities that older children have). Whatever the merits of an argument from marginal cases the importance of being able to show that some children close to but below the age threshold (such as adolescents) do or do not merit the same treatment as other children is clear.

Another way to make the charge of arbitrariness turns on the idea that dividing lines as such—‘any’ lines—are arbitrary. Thus, either it will be said that this age is the wrong dividing point or that using any age is wrong. The first objection – ‘wrong age’- may concede that there is a better age to be used, just as the second objection – ‘age is wrong’ – may concede that there is a way, better than using age, to mark the division. The initial and obvious reply to the second objection is that age as such is not the issue but rather the reliable correlation of age with the acquisition of those capacities that qualify a person for the attribution of rights. Some liberationists may thus not dispute that there should be a threshold age—one beyond which adult rights are acquired—but think that the conventional or orthodox threshold is fixed too late. Liberationists may also simply deny that there should be any threshold on the grounds that there just is no difference between children and adults in respect of their respective capacities for any threshold age to mark. This version of the arbitrariness claim concedes that if age functions as a threshold it does so only inasmuch as it reliably correlates with the acquisition of capacities which are necessary qualifications for the possession of rights. In sum, the arbitrariness claim amounts either to the denial that the acquisition of the specified capacities does correlate with the threshold in question or to the denial that there is any age at which the capacities are acquired.

Setting aside this version of the arbitrariness claim, what remains of the charge that ‘[a]ny line which uses age to distinguish people with rights from people without can be shown to be arbitrary’? There are two ideas. The first is that although the threshold of age does serve to mark a difference within the class of human beings it is being human which is important. Or, relatedly, what is being distributed, namely rights, is so important that all humans should have them. It is being human which should make the difference not being of a certain age. Rights are too important to be denied to some humans on account of their (lesser) age and given to others on account of their (greater) age.

The reply is simple. Being human does matter and it is precisely because they are human beings, albeit young ones, that children are entitled to be treated in ways that non-humans may not. However, it is rights that are being distributed and to that end a threshold age does mark a significant point. Although having rights is better than not having them, those who lack rights do not lack any moral status whatever. Children are acknowledged to be humans meriting moral regard and yet to be young humans meriting a certain and age specific regard.

Some will still insist that a threshold age does not mark a significant enough difference. A 40-year-old differs greatly from a 4-year-old. Someone who is 18 years and 1 month does not differ greatly from someone who is 17 years and 11 months. It is understandable that the 40-year-old should have rights whereas the 4-year-old should not. But this is not the case for the latter pairing. This is a version of the marginal cases argument about the extent to which real differences between classes are displayed by the members of each class at the edge of these classes. The reply will be that the criticism concedes a difference between being too young to have rights and being old enough to have them. These differences are not arbitrary. Moreover, a threshold has to be fixed. The fact that there may not be significant—or significant enough—differences between the members of the two classes being distinguished at the edges of each class is the price one pays for having to operate with a threshold.

But is this price one that must be paid? The complaint is that age does not always reliably correlate with competence. Thus, using age may risk unfairly penalising some who are in fact competent just as it may risk unfairly rewarding some who are in fact incompetent. Moreover, the penalties and rewards in question—lacking or possessing rights—are far too important to run such risks. Why then should one not take each individual on her own and determine whether or not she is qualified to have rights?

The problems with the suggested use of a test are various. First, there is the sheer administrative scale of its employment in such a case as human rights. Second, there is the problem of agreeing on a determinate procedure for testing. How exactly are we to examine someone in respect of their competence to possess rights? Third, there is the problem of fairness. Any test must not unfairly disqualify some group of putative rights-holders by, for instance, having a bias in the testing procedure which, in effect, discriminates against that group. Fourth, the administration of any official test—and especially one whose passing yields such important goods—is subject to the risks of corruption or of misuse for the self-interested ends of those administering it. Again, this cannot be true of the use of age as a threshold. To summarise, these problems attaching to the use of a test are large and insuperable.

The counter-response to consider is that the burdens of any such test should be borne by the state inasmuch as there is a considerable risk of egregious wrong – the denial of rights – that is run by continuing only to use an age-based proxy for the existence of the relevant capacity (Godwin 2011, 286).

The charges of arbitrariness can be argued to be false or overstated. Children do differ from adults in respect of their competence to possess rights. A threshold of age may be the appropriate way to register that difference. One should, thus, acquire rights only on reaching a certain age. However, two riders to this summary are appropriate.

First, different rights may be acquired at different ages. After all, it is plausible to think that the capacities needed for, and qualifying a person to possess, different rights are themselves different. More particularly, different rights would seem to require different degrees of competence. Liberty rights entitle their possessors to make choices, and the matters in respect of which choices are made differ in their complexity, importance, and consequential impact. Those who are allowed to choose require greater or lesser amounts of maturity, independence, and deliberative proficiency in order to be able to make these different kinds of choice. The decisions to marry, consume alcohol, serve in the armed forces, undertake paid labour, vote, buy goods in a shop, travel unaccompanied, and open a bank account seem to presuppose different levels of understanding and autonomy. Assuming that these levels are progressively acquired at different ages, it makes sense to accord the corresponding rights not all at once but in stages.

Second, there should be an ordered but consistent acquisition of rights. If children are assumed to display the competence required for one kind of right, they should not be refused another kind of right which presupposes the same or even a lesser degree of ability. It would not make sense, for instance, to deny a young person the right to refuse medical treatment but allow them to choose to die in the armed services of their state.

The liberationist may make one last move. They may concede that children do lack the capacities that are a prerequisite for the possession of rights. However, they can suggest that children should be permitted ‘to borrow the capacities of others to secure whatever it is we are entitled to’ (Cohen 1980, 56). Child agents would advise their clients with a view to ensuring that the child’s right is properly exercised. However, to the various problems with the use of proxies or representatives, which have already been rehearsed in Section 1, we may add this question, Is the child still free to act or not on the advice given? If the child is not so free, then the role of the adviser is a strictly paternalist one, supplanting the child’s choice as to what is best for herself with her own choice. If on the other hand the child is free to reject the adviser’s advice, then the child is free to do what she wants anyway and the role of adviser is otiose and beside the point. One only needs to ‘borrow’ what one does not have. Not using what could be borrowed leaves one with the lack—and its consequences—that made the borrowing necessary. On the other hand, if a child can distinguish good from bad advice, then the borrowing is unnecessary. The child can give as good advice to herself as would be given to her by an adviser. But then no adviser is needed and this is precisely what Cohen denies.

Those who deny that children do have rights can, as O’Neill argues, believe that the interests of children are nevertheless adequately protected through adults’ discharging relevant obligations. Yet, for some, the value of rights is not adequately captured in this manner. Joel Feinberg, for instance, believes that the value of a right lies in those who possess it being able to claim from others what is specified as its content (Feinberg 1970).

If having rights does have a distinctive and special value in this kind of way, then it matters greatly that children can have at least some rights. What might these be? As indicated at the outset, children are humans. They have at least the right to life that all humans have. Nevertheless, children are not thought to have all the rights that adult humans do. Central amongst these rights is that of self-determination, that is, the right to make choices in respect of one’s own life. This right is the basis of derivative rights to marry, have sex, choose one’s work, purse a course of education, and so on.

Most who believe that adults have rights which children do not have make the cut between liberty and welfare rights. Feinberg distinguishes between rights that belong only to adults (A-rights), rights that are common to both adults and children (A-C-rights), and rights that children alone possess (C-rights) (Feinberg 1980). Thus, a common position is that the A-rights include, centrally, the liberty rights, and that the A-C-rights include, centrally, the welfare rights. To repeat, liberty rights are rights of choice (how and whether to vote, what to say publicly, whether to practise a religion and which one, which if any association to join, and so on), whereas welfare rights protect important interests (such as health, bodily integrity, and privacy).

What might be included in the C-rights? Feinberg distinguishes between two sub-classes of C-rights. There are, first, those rights which children possess in virtue of their condition of childishness. Although Feinberg does not further divide this first sub-class of C-rights, this can be done. There are the rights children have to receive those goods they are incapable of securing for themselves and are incapable of so doing because of their dependence upon adults. These goods might include food and shelter. There are, second, the rights to be protected against harms which befall children because of their childlike vulnerability and whose harmfulness is a function of a fact that they befall children. These harms might include abuse and neglect. Note that some adults might be argued to merit the same degree of rights-based protection on account of their childlike vulnerability and dependence.

Finally, there are goods that children should arguably receive just because they are children. Those who have written on children’s goods do so for two reasons: first, to answer the question of what, as a matter of justice, is owed to children; and, second, to answer the question of whether, and why if so, childhood is itself intrinsically valuable (Gheaus 2015; Macleod 2010). Note that goods may be valuable to both children and adults, but of especial value to the former; or only of value to children. Candidate goods include play and innocence.

However, the most central, and contentious, example is a child’s right to be loved. This is not an A-C-right but it is arguably a C-right, and indeed is cited by many as a C-right (MacCormick 1976, 305). Various declarations of children’s rights include such a right and a respectable case can be made to meet the various objections normally raised against its attribution (Liao 2015).

It is standard to classify the rights listed in the UNCRC under the three P’s: those of protection (for example, against abuse), of provision (for example, of education), and of participation (for example, to speak and to associate freely). Protection rights will be accorded to children but not to adults inasmuch the condition or state of childhood calls forth and requires this protection. Children, along with adults, have provision rights but the content of these will differ between them because of the form that children’s needs and circumstances take. Thus, grant that both children and adults have a welfare right to health care. In the case of children, but not that of adults’, paediatric care and treatment is appropriate. But that fact is no different in its significance from the fact that amongst different adults the proper form of health care should vary in line with their various disabilities, diseases, and circumstances.

The second sub-class of C-rights are those which Feinberg characterises as ‘rights-in-trust’ and which he thinks can be subsumed under the single title of a ‘right to an open future’. These are the rights given to the child in the person of the adult she will become. They are the rights whose protection ensures that, as an adult, she will be in a position to exercise her A- and A-C-rights to the maximal or at least to a very significant degree. They keep her future open. Such rights impose limits on the rights of parents and also impose duties on the part of the state to protect these rights.

A couple of things are worth noting about these rights-in-trust. First, Feinberg refers to these C-rights as ‘anticipatory autonomy rights’, which might suggest that they are only A-rights-in-trust. But he also speaks of rights-in-trust of class C as protecting those future interests a child will have as an adult. This implies that they are also anticipatory welfare rights (Feinberg 1980, 126–7). Hence this sub-class of C-rights ensures that the adult can later exercise both her A-rights (liberty) and her A-C-rights (welfare).

Second, there is the question of how open a child’s future should be. Some interpret the demand for an education for an ‘open future’ as requiring individuals to acquire ‘to the greatest possible extent’ the capacity to choose between ‘the widest possible variety of ways of life’ (Arneson and Shapiro 1996, 388). Arneson and Shapiro have pointed out several objections to such a ‘maximising’ interpretation. It may not be possible to quantify in a determinate fashion the number of options open to a future adult. Furthermore, some fulfilling life choices are only available at the expense of denying the child a number of otherwise possible choices. For instance, a child intensively trained to realise his considerable innate musical abilities may be unable to pursue careers that would have been open to him in the absence of such a dedicated education. The following further criticisms can be added. Requiring that a child be brought up to be able eventually to choose between as many options as possible may impose unreasonable burdens on parents. It also seems implausible to think that a child suffers if she is denied one or even several possible insignificant further options beyond some threshold number of choices. Is it really harmful to a child that she does not learn to play all of the orchestral instruments and is thereby denied the opportunity to pursue a solo career in those she does not? Finally, some future options are surely morally base or in some other respect without value (Mills 2003).

Feinberg does sometimes talk only of the harms of closing off significant life choices. Yet he does also on occasion employ the language of maximisation. ‘[Education] should send [the child] out into the adult world with as many open opportunities as possible, thus maximising his chances for self-fulfilment’. (1980, 135; see also 151). However, it seems much more plausible to suggest that a child should have enough autonomy to be able to make reasonable life choices. The preconditions of autonomy are both internal (a capacity to think for oneself, to acquire and appreciate relevant information, and a volitional ability to act independently) and external (the provision of a range of feasible and valuable options). In respect of both conditions, it is perfectly possible to have a good sense of what counts as adequate autonomy, even if there is no clear bright line marking the point of sufficiency.

Closely related to Feinberg’s idea of ‘rights-in-trust’ is Eekelaar’s idea of a child’s ‘developmental’ rights (Eekelaar 1986). These are the rights of a child to develop her potential so that she enters adulthood without disadvantage. Whereas Feinberg attributes the rights to the child’s adult-self, the child holding them only in ‘anticipatory’ form, Eekelaar attributes the rights to the adult’s child-self. Arguably, this makes no difference, since the child and the adult are one and the same person. Although this is a metaphysically contentious claim (Parfit 1984), grant that child and adult are merely distinct temporal stages of a single individual. Whether each temporal stage of the person has the same interest in the child developing into an adult is a further issue which will be considered shortly.

However, child and adult do stand in an asymmetrical relationship to one another in a way that does not seem to be true of the different temporal stages of the same adult. After all, adult Smith can now exercise her liberty rights in such a fashion that at a later time she is not able to exercise them and her welfare rights to the same degree as she can now. Smith can, for instance, choose now to enter into a slavery contract or to engage in a dangerous sport that risks death or serious disability. A child, on the other hand, is denied the right to make choices that will fetter the adult exercise of her rights.

This can be justified by distinct thoughts. First, a child, unlike an adult, simply lacks the ability to make considered choices and should not have liberty rights. An adult can make unwise choices but is presumed to possess a general minimal capacity to make choices, which the child lacks. Second, what is done or not done in childhood can affect or shape the whole of one’s later life and in a way that is largely irreversible. By contrast, an adult is in a better position to change the course of her life. Third, a child may be thought to have the formal deliberative abilities to make choices (knowing what is to be decided) but simply lack the life experiences to appreciate and properly understand those choices.

Fourth, in the specific case of an adolescent – who is legally a child but on the edge of and at the beginning of adulthood – they may be judged as autonomous but nevertheless at a ‘life stage’ which merits paternalistic denial of choices (Franklin-Hall 2013).

Now consider the case of a child who will not develop into an adult, say someone who is suffering from a terminal disease that will prevent her living beyond the age of majority. Such a child lacks developmental rights. Or rather, she has them, but her circumstances do not allow for their protection. However, she does still have welfare and protection rights whose correlate duties can be discharged. The child has an interest in not suffering harm and in enjoying a certain standard of life even if she never lives beyond her childhood.

When, for instance, we provide a child with health care or protect her from abuse we not only thereby serve her immediate interests as a child, but we also ensure that she will grow into a mentally and physically healthy adult. At its simplest, a child’s welfare right not to be killed is a precondition of the very possibility of there being a future adult with any rights at all. Even the education of a child can be represented as not merely of instrumental worth to the future adult but of value to the child here and now. A child has an interest now in learning things and does so independently of what this might later mean for her future adult self. (Coady 1992, 51).

The child with the terminal illness will not develop into an adult. Can we say of anybody that she has an interest, as a child, in developing into an adult, an interest that is frustrated by her terminal condition? Or is there an interest in only being a child and never becoming an adult? Grant that the child-Q and the adult-Q are two stages of one and the same individual. Could we speak of a conflict between the present interest of child-Q in staying a child and the future interest of adult-Q in child-Q developing into her later adult self? The latter interest seems perfectly straightforward. However, it is at least controversial whether everybody does have an interest in growing up. Earlier cited work on the putative goods of childhood can be used to argue that childhood as such has a value that adulthood does not, with the further questions arising of whether the former value exceeds the latter and of whether they can be compared at all (Gheaus 2015; Hannan 2018). It has also been argued that it would be better for human beings never to have been born (Benatar 2008). Even if this is not a general truth, it may be true of some humans that not growing into adulthood and ceasing to exist is better than becoming an adult. This might be true, for instance, of somebody facing the prospect of a life of unrelieved, extreme pain and misery. Could there be an interest—even without such a prospect—in being forever a child?

Such an interest cannot be physically satisfied in this world. It is satisfied in the fictional world of Peter Pan; but the author of that fantasy, J.M. Barrie, clearly deprecates his eponymous hero’s infantile desire to escape the realities of the world (Barrie 1995). If we only mean, by the imagined interest, remaining childish it is hard to see how any individual in our world could, if rational, have such an interest. It is one thing to be a child forever in a child’s world as Peter Pan is. It is quite another to remain a child in our adult world. Childhood is something best appreciated by the child. It is also something that needs to be left behind. In the words of Paul, ‘When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man I put away these childish things’ (I Corinthians 13:11).

If children are not thought to have the A-rights, and, chiefly, do not have the liberty rights to choose for themselves how to conduct their lives, nevertheless they are not morally abandoned to their own devices. In the first place, it is a standard principle of child welfare law and policy that the ‘best interests’ of a child should be promoted. Article 3.1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child states that ‘In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration’ (United Nations 1989).

Second, Article 12.1 of the Convention asserts that, ‘States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child’ (United Nations 1989).

Section 9 discusses the right to be heard. This section discusses the best interest principle, henceforward the BIP. The discussion is brief for the following reason: Article 3 does not accord to children a right to have their best interests protected and promoted. Indeed, it does not use the word ‘right’. The Article does impose on States parties an obligation to ensure that all relevant organizations and legislative bodies make the best interests of children a relevant consideration. However, the BIP sits oddly besides the other enumerated rights.

Moreover, the BIP has been subject to numerous criticisms (Kopelman 1997; Parker 1994) and claims of ambiguity, chief amongst which are the following. First, the weight given to best interests can be variously specified, a choice between ‘primary’ or ‘paramount’ being a significant one which preoccupied those drafting the Convention. (Alston 1994 12). Second, there is an important difference between its use in respect of ‘a’ (that is some particular) child and of ‘children’ (as a class of humans). Third, it is implausible to view the BIP as requiring that one must act ‘so as to promote maximally the good’ of the child (Buchanan and Brock 1989, 10). Construed in literally maximising terms (rather than merely what is good enough), the BIP is unfeasibly demanding of agencies charged with the care of children. Fourth, the BIP does not, as it stands, take account of the interests of others. We cannot be required to promote the best interests of a child over and above, and without regard to, the interests of any relevant adult.

Fifth, the interpretation of ‘best interests’ is unclear: it could be specified as what a child would choose for herself under specified hypothetical circumstances; or what is, as a matter of fact, best for the child, an account which is distinct from and independent of the child’s desires, actual or hypothetical. If it is the latter then, some argue, we cannot with certainty determine what is best for a child. We cannot in practice make complete and accurate assessments of what will be the outcome of each and every policy option that we might adopt in respect of a child (Mnookin 1979). The BIP is indeterminate even where there are only two possible decisions to be made (Elster 1989, 134–139). Such indeterminacy is compounded and complicated by the fact of moral pluralism (Rawls 1993, xvi-xvii), whereby individuals subscribe to different conceptions of what makes life valuable. If we cannot agree how to rank as better or worse different kinds of life, we will not be able to agree what is better or best for the growing child. The fact of extensive disagreement about what is best for children, or for a child, is often set in the context of broader cultural disagreements about morality in general. It is said that the BIP is subverted, or at least rendered deeply problematic, by the existence of these deep and pervasive cultural disagreements (Alston (ed.) 1994).

If we understand the BIP in terms of a child’s hypothetical choices, the most striking and influential thought is that we should choose what is best for the child as the child would choose for herself if the child were adult. For instance, John Rawls thinks the following formulation defines the acceptable paternalism of a guardian’s treatment of his child: ‘We must choose for others as we have reason to believe they would choose for themselves if they were at the age of reason and deciding rationally’ (Rawls 1999, 183). This apparently simple formulation is in fact susceptible of at least two quite different interpretations, each of which brings with it its own problems. In each case, we are seeking to specify the adult person who chooses for the child.

We might, first, mean that we should choose for this child as the adult the child will become would choose. However, this does not determine a unique choice for, crucially, the nature of the adult that the child will become precisely depends on the choices that are made for it whilst a child. We can conceive of each of the different adult selves the child might develop into approving, respectively, of the different choices made for its childhood self—choices which were responsible for the development of these different selves. Or, second, the adult person who chooses for the child is an adult analogue of the child. This is not the child’s future adult self, which as we have seen is indeterminate, but this child made into an adult version of itself. That is, we do not imagine this child developing in the future into its adult self. Rather we imagine a mature or grown-up version of this child now making choices. This interpretation however will still not work. The adult version of the child is one with childish beliefs and desires filtered out. But, in the first place, it is not clear what remains of the child in any choice situation rendered hypothetical in this fashion. For the child just is someone who has these childish beliefs and desires. What is it to be a child if not to think and want as a child does? Second, it is entirely indeterminate what should replace these beliefs and desires.

However, in the case of children, by contrast with adults, we cannot cash out the various hypothetical conditionals. We do not know what a child would choose if possessed of adult rational powers of choice, because what makes a child a child just is its lack of such powers (its ignorance, inconstant wants, inconsistent beliefs, and limited powers of ratiocination). At the same time, we cannot ask how an adult would choose if in the child’s situation just because an adult would not be in that situation, or would not be in a child’s situation. We must, it seems, choose for a child because a child cannot choose for itself, and we must choose what is best for a child not what some imagined adult version of the child would choose for itself.

To repeat, the BIP, despite its importance, is not a child’s right. Moreover, as well as being beset by these various problems, it is also arguably in tension with some of the other rights a child has. In particular, the obligation to do what is best for the child stands against an obligation to give serious consideration to a child’s own view of what is in their interests. This requirement is discussed in Section 9.

The putative possession by a child of a right to an ‘open future’ together with the imperative to promote any child’s best interests raises the question of what, if anything, is wrong with the transmission to a child of values. These most obviously may be those values by which the child’s parent lives and which may also help to define the identity of a community. Article 2 of the UNCRC accords the child a right to non-discrimination on various grounds including ‘national, ethnic or social origin’; and Article 30 recognises that a child belonging to an ‘ethnic, religious or linguistic’ minority ‘shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of his or her group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practise his or her own religion, or to use his or her own language’.

Yet, for many liberals, there is a tension between the recognition of such rights and the requirement that a child not be inducted into a community in such a manner that his or her future adult choices are constrained. The main way in which this is set out is by means of an emphasis upon a liberal ideal of an autonomous life, one in which an individual is able both to form his or her own conception of the good life to lead and is not prevented – by external social circumstances or the actions of others – from being able to lead the preferred life. Often the target that is juxtaposed to such a liberal ideal is the values of religious minorities. The Supreme Court judgment that prompted Joel Feinberg’s defence of a child’s right to an ‘open future’, and which has been extensively discussed, is Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972). This exempted the Amish community from the requirement to keep their children in school to the age others are so required in the interests of maintaining that community’s identity. Arneson and Shapiro in response contrast ‘religious traditionalist’ and ‘secular worldly’ ways of life, seeing an education for the latter as the best preparation for an open future (Arneson and Shapiro 1996).

The problem with this approach is that the preferential treatment – in the way that children are schooled – is both discriminatory and may violate the central precept of liberal neutrality, the requirement that the state not, in its law and policies, favour any conception of the good (see the entry on Perfectionism in Moral and Political Philosophy). Moreover, some liberals will argue that the character traits and dispositions of autonomy, for instance steadfastness of character, are best taught by being raised in adherence to a particular way of life, such as one of religious faith (Callan, 2002; Burtt 1996).

Liberals may escape the charge of violating the principle of neutrality by arguing that a liberal society requires that its citizens be motivated by a sense of justice and an ability to participate effectively within democratic institutions. This requirement is satisfied only if children are brought up in certain values and are able, when adults, to make maximally autonomous choices. In this manner the promotion of autonomy and an open future can be seen as an indirect consequence of a necessary education in those civic capacities that are the necessary precondition of stable and sustainable liberal institutions.

The tension that is broached by a child’s right to an open future is given a clear and provocative reading in Matthew Clayton’s book (Clayton 2006). He argues that parents may not ‘enrol their children into comprehensive doctrines’, in other words, bring them up to believe in general truths about the best way to lead a life, whatever the provenance of those truths. Thus, his view is broader than a critique of a religious education. But at the same time, it would indict the vast majority of conscientious parents seeking to bring up their children as they see best.

His defence of this view relies on a claimed analogy between the exercises of political and of parental power. The former is only legitimate on liberal grounds in the absence of any appeal to the correctness of some comprehensive doctrine. Clayton thinks that the similarities between the two exercises of power are sufficiently strong and robust for parental conduct to be constrained by the same liberal principle of legitimacy.

In response it may be argued that the two domains of power are not analogous. It may also be suggested that there is a morally relevant difference between parents setting out to enrol their children in a comprehensive doctrine and children coming to share such a doctrine because of sharing their life with their parents (Archard 2002). Indeed, if the institution of the family as an essentially intimate and private community of adults and children can be defended and if, further, adults have a protected right to lead their lives by the light of their preferred conception of the good, then such unintended enrolment is inevitable. Others will argue that it is not possible to teach children that sense of justice which liberals see as critical to the sustainability of a fair society without embedding it in a comprehensive doctrine (Franklin-Hall 2019).

It is of course a further question of whether certain communal values violate liberal values other than autonomy – such as equality. For example, it would be wrong to rear boys and girls in gendered stereotypes that perpetuate inequality and discrimination.

The right to be heard is a valuable right. What makes it valuable is both that there is a point to making one’s views known and, further, that making one’s views known makes a difference. It matters to me that I can speak out on political questions. It matters also, and probably more, if what I say leads to the changes I favour. Correlatively, it is true both that I do not want to be silenced and that I do not want the statement of my views to be ineffectual. As a further general point there will always be some issues on which it is more important that I be allowed to speak and that what I say about these issues carries weight in determining outcomes. Those are the issues that matter to me, and the more they matter the more important it is that I have the freedom to speak about them and be heard. On one account, since children’s views should not be ‘authoritative’, that is, determinative of what is done, they have only a ‘consultative’ role (Brighouse 2003). They may influence an outcome by, most obviously, providing those who do make the decisions affecting a child’s interests with a clearer picture of what in fact is in those interests. On another account, encouraging and according a weight to the expression of children’s views—even where this is unlikely to affect outcomes in line with the views’ content—is valuable just because the child is capable of expressing a view and deserves to be listened to (Archard and Skivenes 2009).

How is it with the child’s right to be heard? It will be important for the child to be listened to. But it is also important that the child is heard in the sense that her views are given due consideration and may influence what is done. Note that the child’s right to be heard on matters affecting its own interests is a substitute for the liberty right to make one’s own choices. The right to be heard is only a right to have the opportunity to influence the person who will otherwise choose for the child. The power to make those choices resides with the adult guardian or representative of the child. All the child retains is the right to try to motivate that adult to choose as the child herself would choose if she was allowed to.

Article 12.1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child not only accords the child the right freely to express its views on matters affecting the child. It also, and crucially, gives the child an assurance that these views will be given ‘due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child’. Great emphasis is now placed on what are termed a child’s ‘participation rights’ as opposed to his or her ‘protection rights’. The latter, as the name suggests, protect the child from violent, abusive, cruel or exploitative treatment. ‘Participation rights by contrast, give children some entitlement to be the agents of their own lives. Article 12.1 provides a crucial underpinning justification for such rights. There are problems in understanding how practically to implement such rights (Ang, et al. 2006). There are also theoretical issues in making precise sense of what a right such as that enshrined in Article 12.1 might mean. Its complexities lie in understanding the difference between an adult’s power of choice and a child’s views on critical personal matters, in the different ways we might consider a child’s views, in how to weight those views and how their weighting makes a practical difference in coming to a decision (Archard and Uniacke 2020).

The celebrated British legal judgement in the Gillick case (Gillick [1986]) provides a useful contrast to Article 12. This judgement has been extensively discussed, and it has also been highly influential in matters relating to the consent of children to medical treatment.

The Gillick judgement arose from the dissatisfaction of a mother with the failure of her local health authority to withdraw an advisory circular to the area’s doctors. This advised doctors that they could counsel and inform young girls under the age of 16 about sexual matters as well as provide them with contraception, and that they could do this without the consent of the child’s parents. The mother, Victoria Gillick, went to court to have the circular declared unlawful. The final judgement by the British House of Lords was that the circular was not unlawful. A key issue, relevant to the present discussion, concerned the proper relationship between the child’s right to decide for itself and the parent’s right to decide for the child.

In deciding in favour of the health authority one of the Law Lords, Lord Scarman, made a statement crucial to his finding and one that has subsequently been much cited. It is worth reproducing:

The underlying principle of the law … is that parental right yields to the child’s right to make his own decisions when he reaches a sufficient understanding and intelligence to be capable of making up his own mind on the matter requiring decision. (Gilick [1986], 186) I would hold that as a matter of law the parental right to determine whether or not their minor child below the age of 16 will have medical treatment terminates if and when the child achieves a sufficient understanding and intelligence to enable him to understand fully what is proposed. (Gillick [1986], 188–9)

Various questions arise. First, what does it mean for a child to get to a particular point in their development? On what could be called the threshold interpretation, once a child has achieved a certain level of competence, her views as to what shall happen to her have a determinate weight, either amounting to a liberty right of choice (on a strong version) or (on a weak version) being counted in the balance against her parents’ views and the state’s judgement of her best interests. On what could be called the proportionality interpretation, the child’s views progressively increase in weight as she gains a greater competence to choose for herself. They increase up to the acquisition of a full liberty right of choice.

Second, on either the threshold or the proportionality account we need a measure of that ability that marks the threshold or is simply progressively acquired. How much intelligence and understanding, for instance, is sufficient? In the first place, this measure must be taken independently of any judgement of what is in the child’s best interest. That a child would choose what is taken to be in her best interests is at most evidence that she does have sufficient intelligence and understanding of the relevant issue. Her making such a choice is not a necessary condition of her having the requisite ability. Similarly, the making by a child of a poor choice is not conclusive evidence of her general incapacity to choose for herself. Wise adults can occasionally make stupid decisions just as fools sometimes get it right.

In the Gillick judgement, Scarman required of the child that she manifest an understanding of the ‘nature’ of the contraceptive advice offered and ‘also have a sufficient maturity to understand what is involved’ (Gillick [1986], 189). We can distinguish here a number of possible elements. There is, first, knowledge of certain facts. One child, for instance, knows that a contraceptive acts to prevent conception that might otherwise result from sexual intercourse. Another child, by contrast, could simply be ignorant of or unable to comprehend the facts of reproduction. There is, second, an understanding of what follows for the child from an act or its omission. Thus, failure to use a contraceptive could lead a young person who had sexual intercourse to become pregnant. These two understandings together constitute knowledge of the ‘nature’ of the act. Finally, there is what arguably comes with ‘maturity’ which is the ability to appreciate the significance both of an act or its omission and of the relevant consequences. It is one thing to know what it is to become pregnant, and another to understand what that means. This latter understanding involves realising that pregnancy brings in its wake physical changes, that any resultant birth leaves a young person with a child to care for, and so on. Scarman even insisted that the child would need to have an appreciation of the ‘moral and family’ questions involved.

Third, it is important in measuring a child’s competence against that in respect of which he or she is expressing a view to distinguish between the complexity and the seriousness of the matter. A simple choice—for instance that between only two options such as whether to have a life-saving operation—may nevertheless be portentous, having enormous and far-reaching consequences. It may thus require much greater appreciation of what is involved than a more complex decision, one that ranges over many possibilities. Yet the latter kind of choice—consider choosing a five-course meal from a very large menu—is far less serious in its consequences. In short, the difficulty or complexity of a choice should not be confused with its importance or significance for the child.

Fourth, the English courts at least have detected a fundamental asymmetry between refusing and choosing to have treatment. A competent adult has a right both to choose to have treatment and to refuse it. Should this not also be the case with a competent child? A 15-year-old who wants to have a particular operation against her parents’ wishes and even contrary to the best judgement of her doctors may be judged competent and thus have her wishes respected. However, the English courts in a series of judgements after Gillick have argued that matters are somehow different when it is a case of a child refusing an operation.

Of course, there is no inconsistency if a refusal requires a greater degree of understanding and appreciation of the issues than a positive acceptance. But where the choice is a simple disjunction, it is hard to see how this can be the case. Are not the issues at stake the same for both disjuncts? If the courts believe that an obligation to act in the best interests of the child trumps one to respect the wishes of a competent child, it needs to be shown why this obligation does not have force in all circumstances. Why would a court not deny treatment to a child it does not believe in her best interests when it judges her competent to choose? If a child is competent then she is in all significant and relevant respects the equal of an adult and should be able both to choose and to refuse treatment.

Three final comments on the child’s right to choose are in order. First, what is deemed to be in the child’s best interests is evidence for, but not finally determinative of, a judgement as to the competence of the child. Nevertheless, balancing a child’s right to be heard against a child’s right to have its best interests promoted is difficult. Second, it is arguably enough to show a child’s competence that a child understands the nature of the act. After all, no more is needed for an adult’s consent to be informed. In the law of contract adults need only to know what they are signing up to. They do not need a full appreciation of the contract’s significance and of its import for their future lives. Third, Gillick competence as specified is very demanding. Indeed, there are many adults who, in making their choices, fail to display the maturity and ‘understanding of what is involved’ that is dictated as necessary for the child. Why then should a child have to display a competence that many adults lack both in general and in particular cases?

One important, indeed central, manner of understanding the moral status of the child is by questioning whether or not children have rights. It is normally thought that according to the ‘will’ theory of rights children cannot have rights, whereas according to the ‘interest’ theory they can. It is, however, at least possible on the ‘will’ theory that children could have rights, albeit ones that are exercised by trustees or representatives.

Child ‘liberationists’ claim that children have all the rights that adults do. Others deny this, either believing that children have no rights or believing that children have only some of the rights which adults possess. Those who believe children have no rights deny that children are qualified as adults are to have rights. They further argue that the ascription of rights to children manifests a misunderstanding of what children are like and of the nature of family relationships. Those who deny children all or some of the rights possessed by adults nevertheless believe that children, as humans, have a certain moral status that ought to be protected.

Those who say that drawing a line between adults and children in respect of their possession of rights is arbitrary may mean different things. To deny that different capacities are progressively acquired at different ages is implausible. To insist that drawing a line as such is wrong ignores the point of doing so, and recourse to the alternative of a competency test is not appropriate or practicable. On the standard view, children have welfare but not liberty rights, whereas adults have both. Adults also have the right that their childhood selves shall grow up to be adults of a certain sort. Children do not have an interest in remaining in childhood.

The best-interest principle with all its problems of interpretation sits oddly alongside the rights that are accorded to the child, especially that of a right to be heard in matters affecting its interests. This right in turn is a substitute not a complement to the right of choosing for oneself, and the Gillick competence which qualifies a child to exercise its rights of decision-making is arguably stringently defined.

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• O’Neill, O. and Ruddick, W. (eds.), 1979, Having Children: Philosophical and Legal Reflections on Parenthood , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Scarre, G., (ed.), 1989, Children, Parents, and Politics , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Tomlin, P. 2018, ‘Saplings or Caterpillars? Trying to Understand Children’s Well-Being’, Journal of Applied Philosophy , 35 (1): 29–46.
• Turner, S.M. and Matthews, G.B., eds., 1998, The Philosopher’s Child , Rochester: University of Rochester.
• Wald, M., 1979, ‘Children’s Rights: A Framework for Analysis’, University of California at Davis Law Review , 12 (2): 255–282.
• Worsfold, V.L., 1974, ‘A Philosophical Justification for Children’s Rights’, Harvard Educational Review , 44 (1): 142–57.
• Wringe, C., 1981, Children’s Rights , London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Children’s Rights , at Human Rights Watch.
• Children’s Rights , maintained by the Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law School)
• Convention on the Rights of the Child , at the UNICEF web site.

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Child rights and why they matter

This short course will transform and/or refresh your understanding of child rights and a child rights approach, introduce you to UNICEF’s mandate as it relates to child rights, and inspire you to apply a child rights lens to your everyday work and life.

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Make a difference with a child rights approach

This online training aims to: raise the level of awareness and understanding of child rights and a child rights approach and why they are so important to UNICEF; stimulate interest, increase motivation and provide inspiration for all UNICEF personnel and partners globally; encourage an improved application of a child rights approach in practice by UNICEF personnel and partners.

    Learning objectives

At the end of this course you will be able to:

• Transform and/or refresh your awareness, understanding and appreciation of child rights and a child rights approach in a memorable and lasting way;
• Describe child rights, and explain how a child rights approach differs from other approaches, such as child-focused/child-centred, charity and welfare approaches;
• Explain and describe UNICEF’s mandate as it relates to the promotion, protection and fulfilment of children’s rights;
• Describe UNICEF’s engagement in supporting implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child;
• Communicate with partners and personnel about raising awareness and understanding of child rights and a child rights approach, thus cascading the training by word-of mouth;
• Start thinking about ways in which to apply what you have learned to your everyday work and life.

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It should take you about 75 minutes to complete this self-paced course. 

    Methodology

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       Structure

This course is composed of eight sections:

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• Child rights in relation to human rights, needs and well-being
• A child rights approach
• Making a difference through a child rights approach
• Applying child rights: a child rights and equity approach to our work
• Responding to difficult questions about child rights

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Early childhood education (ECE) is becoming a global policy priority, especially in the Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) where there is commitment to invest in the youngest learners. Building on system-level mappings in 2015 and 2017, this report delves into the status of ECE systems in the Pacific region as of 2022. Based on a…

A Cash Plus Model for Safe Transitions to a Healthy and Productive Adulthood

Reports and briefs available for baseline (2017), Round 2 (2018), Round 3 (2019) and Round 4 (2021) surveys. “Ujana Salama” (‘Safe Youth’ in Swahili) is a cash plus programme targeting adolescents in households receiving cash transfers under the United Republic of Tanzania’s Productive Social Safety Net (PSSN) programme. Implemented by the…, Document cover Baseline report (April 2018), This report presents the evaluation design and baseline findings from a 24-month, mixed methods study to provide evidence on the potential for an additional plus component targeted to youth that is layered on top of the Government of Tanzania’s Productive Social Safety Net to improve future economic opportunities for youth and facilitate their…, Document cover Round 2 (Midline) report (2020), This report provides midline findings from the impact evaluation of a cash plus model targeting youth in households receiving the United Republic of Tanzania’s Productive Social Safety Net (PSSN). Implemented by the Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF), with technical assistance of the Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS) and UNICEF Tanzania, the…, Document cover Round 3 report (2020), “Ujana Salama” (‘Safe Youth’ in Swahili) is a cash plus programme targeting adolescents in households receiving the United Republic of Tanzania’s Productive Social Safety Net (PSSN). Implemented by the Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF), with technical assistance of the Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS) and UNICEF Tanzania, the ‘plus’…, Document cover Round 4 report (2024), This mixed-methods impact evaluation examines the impacts of “Ujana Salama” (‘Safe Youth’ in Swahili) which is a cash plus programme targeting adolescents in households receiving cash transfers under the United Republic of Tanzania’s Productive Social Safety Net (PSSN) programme. Implemented by the Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF), with…, A Cash Plus Model for Safe Transitions to a Healthy and Productive Adulthood:Baseline Report Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF) Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS) UNICEF Tanzania UNICEF Office of Research - Innocenti Economic Development Initiatives (EDI) April 2018 The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this paper are…

The Impact of Valor Criança

The Government of Angola and its Development Partners developed and implemented Apoio à Protecção Social – APROSOC (‘Strengthening and expanding social protection to the vulnerable population in Angola’) between 2014 and 2022 as a first step towards establishing a national social protection system. A key component of the programme, Valor Criança,…

The Impact of the Cash Transfer Intervention in the Commune of Nsélé in Kinshasa

In an effort to mitigate the negative socioeconomic consequences of the COVID-19 containment measures in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), UNICEF and the World Food Programme initiated a cash transfer programme in the peri-urban commune of Nsélé, near Kinshasa, the capital of DRC. The intervention reached about 23,000 households in the…

Mitigating the socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 with a cash transfer in peri-urban Kinshasa

Prospects for Children in 2024: Cooperation in a Fragmented World

Prospects for Children in 2024: Cooperation in a Fragmented World is the latest edition of the Global Outlook, a series of reports produced each year by UNICEF Innocenti – Global Office of Research and Foresight, which look to the key trends affecting children and young people over the following 12 months and beyond., As we enter 2024, the world stands at a pivotal juncture. We can choose a path marked by increased global collaboration – a path that embraces innovation, knowledge sharing, policy transfer, and equitable growth. Or, there's a different course that could be taken, one which might entail less unity and a more protectionist approach, potentially…, 1. Geopolitical shifts and the risk of conflict may threaten children’s survival and well-being – but avenues for accountability and cooperation hold promise., In 2024, major powers will continue competing to expand their military, political, economic, and technological influence globally, including within multilateral institutions. Meanwhile, small and middle powers, including many in the Global South, are distancing themselves from confrontation between the major powers by forging new, flexible…, 2. Economic fragmentation threatens families’ livelihoods, children’s development and youth employment – but economic solidarity, market collaboration and investing in future skills can safeguard children’s rights and futures., Economic fragmentation, often driven by geopolitical interests and strategic considerations, is projected to widen disparities between nations in 2024. This unravelling of global economic integration threatens to undermine years of prosperity, progress, and innovation. It also adds fiscal pressure at a time when child poverty is rising in many…, 3. A fragmented multilateral system is not delivering on key issues for children – but it has a chance to reset its course in 2024 through global governance and financing reforms., The year 2024 will be pivotal for addressing a fragmented multilateral system that is failing on issues such as peace, security, climate change, financing for developing countries and the enforcement of normative standards – all of which can have an impact on children and their rights. Many countries, especially those in the Global South, believe…, 4. Developing economies still face structural inequities in the international financial architecture, limiting their ability to invest in children – but reforms to lending approaches and new technologies offer hope., Structural inequities in international financing will continue to limit developing countries’ investments in children in 2024. 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Three key forces stand out: the continuation of El Niño; the rise in outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases due to climate change; and water scarcity. The 2024 El Niño could be even hotter and more dangerous to people and the planet than in 2023.…, 8. Potential impacts of unchecked technologies spark fear and concern for children’s well-being – but proactive policy and global digital cooperation can place children at the centre of responsible design and regulation., The digital environment continues to shape children’s lives. Advances such as artificial intelligence (AI) bring new opportunities for children's learning, health care and development. Because new technology also poses risks for children, striking a regulatory balance will be a 2024 priority for three main reasons: First, apprehension about the…, Prospects for Children: Cooperation in a Fragmented World 2 0 2 4 G L O B A L O U T L O O K This document is interactive and designed for digital viewing. 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119 Children’s Rights Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Children are the most vulnerable members of our society and ensuring their rights and well-being should be a top priority for every society. Writing an essay on children's rights can help raise awareness about the importance of protecting and promoting children's rights. If you are struggling to come up with a topic for your essay, here are 119 children's rights essay topic ideas and examples to inspire you:

• The importance of children's rights in a global context.
• The historical development of children's rights.
• How can society ensure the protection of children's rights?
• The role of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in promoting children's rights.
• The impact of poverty on children's rights.
• Child labor: Violation of children's rights.
• The right to education: Ensuring equal access for all children.
• Child marriage and its implications for children's rights.
• The role of parents in safeguarding children's rights.
• Children's rights in conflict zones: Challenges and solutions.
• The impact of domestic violence on children's rights.
• Protecting children's rights in the digital age.
• Child trafficking: A violation of children's rights.
• Children's rights in the juvenile justice system.
• The impact of armed conflict on children's rights.
• The role of media in promoting children's rights.
• The rights of children with disabilities.
• The role of education in empowering children and promoting their rights.
• The impact of child abuse on children's rights.
• The rights of refugee children.
• The rights of children in foster care.
• Children's rights in the context of migration.
• The impact of armed conflict on education and children's rights.
• The rights of children in the LGBTQ+ community.
• The rights of indigenous children.
• The role of NGOs in promoting children's rights.
• The rights of children in alternative care settings.
• The impact of child labor on children's education.
• Child soldiers: A violation of children's rights.
• The rights of children in the criminal justice system.
• The impact of child marriage on girls' education.
• The rights of children in the child welfare system.
• The role of schools in promoting children's rights.
• The rights of children in conflict-affected areas.
• The impact of child labor on children's physical and mental health.
• The rights of children in the LGBTQ+ community: Challenges and progress.
• The rights of children in the digital age: Balancing protection and empowerment.
• The impact of child marriage on girls' health and well-being.
• The rights of children in the context of migration: Challenges and solutions.
• The role of international organizations in promoting and protecting children's rights.
• The impact of child labor on sustainable development.
• The rights of children in the child welfare system: Gaps and improvements.
• The rights of children in armed conflict: Addressing the long-term impact.
• The impact of child marriage on intergenerational poverty.
• The rights of children in the juvenile justice system: Rehabilitation or punishment?
• The role of community-based organizations in protecting children's rights.
• The impact of child labor on social inequality.
• The rights of children in the criminal justice system: Ensuring due process.
• The impact of child marriage on mental health.
• The rights of children in refugee camps: Challenges and progress.
• The role of schools in preventing child abuse.
• The impact of child labor on children's social and emotional development.
• The rights of children in alternative care settings: Ensuring quality care.
• The rights of children in armed conflict: Ensuring access to education.
• The impact of child marriage on maternal and child mortality.
• The rights of children in the LGBTQ+ community: Pushing for inclusivity.
• The rights of children with disabilities: Promoting access to education.
• The impact of child labor on children's aspirations and future opportunities.
• The rights of children in the context of migration: Strengthening legal frameworks.
• The role of international organizations in monitoring and reporting violations of children's rights.
• The impact of child marriage on girls' empowerment and agency.
• The rights of children in the juvenile justice system: Alternatives to incarceration.
• The rights of children in armed conflict: Rehabilitation and reintegration.
• The impact of child labor on children's nutrition and health.
• The rights of children in the child welfare system: Promoting family-based care.
• The impact of child marriage on girls' education and economic empowerment.
• The rights of children in the criminal justice system: Addressing racial disparities.
• The role of schools in promoting gender equality and preventing violence against children.
• The impact of child labor on children's cognitive development.
• The rights of children in alternative care settings: Monitoring and accountability.
• The rights of children in armed conflict: Strengthening international humanitarian law.
• The impact of child marriage on intergenerational transmission of poverty.
• The rights of children in the LGBTQ+ community: Advocating for legal protections.
• The rights of children with disabilities: Ensuring inclusive education.
• The impact of child labor on children's social integration and belonging.
• The rights of children in the context of migration: Addressing xenophobia and discrimination.
• The role of international organizations in providing support and resources for children's rights.
• The impact of child marriage on mental health and well-being.
• The rights of children in the juvenile justice system: Restorative justice approaches.
• The rights of children in armed conflict: Providing psychosocial support and trauma-informed care.
• The impact of child labor on children's physical development and growth.
• The rights of children in the child welfare system: Strengthening foster care systems.
• The impact of child marriage on girls' political participation and leadership.
• The rights of children in the criminal justice system: Safeguarding due process rights.
• The role of schools in promoting children's rights through inclusive curricula.
• The impact of child labor on children's emotional well-being and self-esteem.
• The rights of children in alternative care settings: Fostering a sense of belonging and identity.
• The rights of children in armed conflict: Addressing the recruitment and use of child soldiers.
• The impact of child marriage on girls' access to reproductive health services.
• The rights of children in the LGBTQ+ community: Challenging societal stigmas and discrimination.
• The rights of children with disabilities: Ensuring access to assistive technologies.
• The impact of child labor on children's mental health and resilience.
• The rights of children in the context of migration: Protecting unaccompanied minors.
• The role of international organizations in providing humanitarian aid for children's rights.
• The impact of child marriage on girls' social and emotional development.
• The rights of children in the juvenile justice system: Preventing recidivism through rehabilitation.
• The rights of children in armed conflict: Ensuring access to basic services in post-conflict settings.
• The impact of child labor on children's educational attainment and dropout rates.
• The rights of children in the child welfare system: Recognizing the importance of kinship care.
• The impact of child marriage on girls' access to economic opportunities.
• The rights of children in the criminal justice system: Addressing the overrepresentation of marginalized groups.
• The role of schools in promoting children's rights through active citizenship education.
• The impact of child labor on children's social skills and relationships.
• The rights of children in alternative care settings: Supporting successful transitions to adulthood.
• The rights of children in armed conflict: Protecting children from recruitment and sexual violence.
• The impact of child marriage on girls' empowerment and self-determination.
• The rights of children in the LGBTQ+ community: Promoting inclusive policies and practices.
• The rights of children with disabilities: Ensuring accessibility in urban environments.
• The impact of child labor on children's long-term outcomes and life chances.
• The rights of children in the context of migration: Addressing the detention and deportation of children.
• The role of international organizations in advocating for children's rights in humanitarian crises.
• The impact of child marriage on girls' social capital and networks.
• The rights of children in the juvenile justice system: Balancing accountability and rehabilitation.
• The rights of children in armed conflict: Protecting children from landmines and explosive remnants of war.
• The impact of child labor on children's physical and mental well-being.
• The rights of children in the child welfare system: Preventing institutionalization and promoting family-based care.
• The impact of child marriage on girls' access to reproductive rights and contraception.
• The rights of children in the criminal justice system: Ensuring access to legal representation and fair trials.
• The role of schools in promoting children's rights through democratic governance and student participation.

These essay topic ideas provide a broad range of issues related to children's rights, allowing you to choose a topic that aligns with your interests and expertise. Remember to conduct thorough research to support your arguments and present a well-rounded analysis of the chosen topic. By writing about children's rights, you contribute to raising awareness and advocating for the well-being of children around the world.

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I am a Child: A Storybook About Children’s Rights

November 20th is Universal Children’s Day.  It marks the day on which the United Nations adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child , in 1989.  In 2000, world leaders outlined the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which aim to reduce extreme poverty, halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and provide universal primary education by 2015. To build on the successes of the MDGs, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) came into effect in 2016. These goals include a more direct reference to the protection of children and children’s rights.

I am a Child is the latest creative advocacy initiative produced by Stairway Foundation in recognition of Universal Children’s Day.  Beautifully illustrated with vibrant paintings, that were created by children in Stairway’s programs, I am a Child perfectly captures the essence, vitality, and beauty of children.  I am a Child will surely delight children and adults alike.

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Children’s Rights: Global and Cultural View Essay

Global perspective, cultural perspective, personal reflection, reference list.

At first, it is necessary to focus on such an aspect as the right to “freedom from violence, abuse, hazardous employment, exploitation, abduction, or sale” since it can safeguard a child against various risks (Amnesty International, 2013). This is one of the issues that are poorly addressed by the governments of various countries. Certainly, the situation in various countries can differ significantly.

For instance, in European or the United States, governments have been able to resolve such problems as exploitation or hazardous employment (Amnesty International, 2013). However, even in these countries, children can become victims of both sexual and physical abuse. In turn, if one speaks about such countries struggling countries located in Africa or Asia, it is possible to argue that the situation is almost catastrophic since.

For example, according to the estimations made by the International Labor Organization (2012), approximately 1.8 million children living in Egypt can work long hours, and they can be exposed to various workplace hazards. These data indicate that the governments of various countries must work on the enforcement of the UN Charter.

Secondly, one can speak about the right to “free compulsory primary education” (Amnesty International, 2013). This is one of the areas in which the global community has achieved considerable successes. One can argue that industrialized countries have been able to enforce this provision of the UN Declaration.

In Europe and North America, this requirement is effectively enforced by the state. Moreover, this issue is effectively addressed in many Asian countries such as Japan, North Korea, or Singapore (OECD 2013, p. 165).

Nevertheless, one should not suppose that this right is universally reinforced. This problem is particularly urgent in African states, where children cannot attend or graduate from schools due to economic difficulties (UNICEF, 2013). Therefore, this issue should not be overlooked by international organizations because the deficiencies of primary education are one of the factors that hinder the development of African countries.

Furthermore, it is important to focus on such aspects as the right to express views as well as freedom of thought. One can say that this is one of the most overlooked provisions included in the UN Charter. Policy-makers in various states admit that children should have an opportunity to speak about their needs (Murdoch, 2012).

Moreover, they try to make sure that educators enable children to think critically and objectively (Australian Government, 2012, unpaged). Nevertheless, there are virtually no studies that can show whether this right is properly protected by the state. This is one of the main limitations that can be singled out.

When speaking about the rights of children in the United Arab Emirates, one can first say that the government of this state attempts to address various problems related to the rights of children (Gomaa, 2012). The public administrators admit they should focus more on the protection of rights. For example, they attach much importance to the provision of primary education to children.

For instance, they guarantee that children can have access to free primary education regardless of their nationality, gender, or, race (Gomaa, 2012, p. 12). Furthermore, they increase their spending on primary education. The only limitation is that the state cannot always enforce this requirement.

However, there is a significant problem which should not be disregarded. In particular, the country has failed to protect their children from hunger. In the UAE, approximately 14 percent of children suffer from malnutrition (Gomaa, 2012).

This is the most urgent problem on which they should concentrate now. To some degree, the failure to guarantee this right indicates at significant economic inequalities within this country. This is one of the points that can be made.

There are several surprising findings that attracted my attention during my research. First of all, there is a significant discrepancy between the declared policies of various governments and real actions. For instance, Conventions on the Rights of the Child has been ratified by 193 countries. However, in many of these states, the policy-makers do not do anything to reinforce these norms.

This is one of the details that can be identified. Moreover, I have been surprised by the fact that the United States is one of the two countries that have not ratified the UN Charter (Amnesty International, 2013). However, I think that the lack of this ratification does not imply that the U.S. government cannot safeguard the rights of children.

As a person, I can contribute to the promotion of human rights in several ways. First of all, it is possible for me to support those organizations that combat the trafficking and exploitation of children.

In my opinion, the efforts of such NGOs are important for the improvement of living conditions. Secondly, I can raise people awareness about various hazards to which children can be exposed. I believe that such activities are also necessary because the rights of children are not sufficiently discussed by the media.

Amnesty International. (2013). Convention on the Rights of the Child . Web.

Australian Government. (2012). Right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief . Web.

Gomaa, F. (2012) Children Rights in the UAE . Web.

International Labor Organization. (2012). Working Children in Egypt: Results of the 2010National Child Labour Survey . Web.

Murdoch, J. (2012). Protecting the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion . Web.

OECD. (2013). Education at a Glance 2013 . Web.

UNICEF. (2013). Nigeria: Education . Web.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Child — Convention on the Rights of the Child

Convention on The Rights of The Child

• Categories: Child Children

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Words: 421 |

Published: Jan 4, 2019

Words: 421 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

• The aims of education
• The role of independent human rights institutions
• HIV/AIDS and the rights of the child
• Adolescent Health
• General measures of implementation
• Treatment of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin
• Implementing child rights in early childhood
• The right of the child to protection from corporal punishment and other cruel or degrading forms of punishment
• The rights of children with disabilities
• Children’s rights in juvenile justice
• Indigenous children and their rights under the UNCRC
• The right of the child to be heard
• The right of the child to freedom from all forms of violence.

Works Cited:

• Abraham, T. (2020). The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold? The Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies, 45(4), 102-117. https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P4-2415500693/the-american-dream-dead-alive-or-on-hold
• Balko, R. (2019). The War on Drugs and the American Dream. In L. Rosenbaum (Ed.), Economic Liberties and the Judiciary (pp. 189-197). Springer.
• Daniels, A. (2018). The American Dream: Is It Dead or Just Different? Cognella Academic Publishing.
• Hsu, H. (2019). Immigrants and the American Dream: How the United States Became a Destination for International Migrants. ABC-CLIO.
• Krauthammer, C. (2013). The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold? The American Interest, 8(4), 3-9. https://www.the-american-interest.com/2013/03/19/the-american-dream-dead-alive-or-on-hold/
• Lewis, J. M. (2018). America's Dreams Deferred: The Broken Promise of the American Dream. ABC-CLIO.
• Pew Research Center. (2019). Most Americans Say the Current Economic Situation is Helping the Rich, Hurting the Poor and Middle Class. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/06/25/most-americans-say-the-current-economic-situation-is-helping-the-rich-hurting-the-poor-and-middle-class/
• Shank, R. (2017). The American Dream and the Power of Wealth: Choosing Schools and Inheriting Inequality in the Land of Opportunity. Routledge.
• Shiller, R. J. (2012). The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold? Yale University Press.
• Zogby, J. (2008). The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream. Random House LLC.

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Speech on Child Rights

Child rights are crucial for every young individual. They ensure you are protected, loved, and given opportunities to grow.

Sadly, many children around the world don’t enjoy these rights. Let’s explore why these rights are important and what we can do to uphold them.

1-minute Speech on Child Rights

Good day, everyone. We are here to talk about something very important: child rights. This means the rights every child should have, no matter where they live or who they are.

First, every child has the right to life. This means they should be born and grow up healthy and safe. They should have food to eat, clean water to drink, and a safe place to live. They should not be hurt or treated badly.

Next, every child has the right to learn. They should go to school and get a good education. This helps them grow their minds and learn about the world. This also prepares them for the future, so they can get good jobs and live happy lives.

Also, every child has the right to play. Play is not just fun, but also important for learning and growing. It helps children make friends, learn new skills, and understand how to work with others.

Lastly, every child has the right to be heard. This means they should be allowed to say what they think and feel. Adults should listen to them and respect their ideas. This helps children feel important and teaches them to respect others too.

Remember, child rights are not just nice to have, they are necessary. They help children grow up to be healthy, happy, and successful. Let’s all work together to make sure every child has these rights. Thank you.

Also check:

• Essay on Child Rights

2-minute Speech on Child Rights

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today, we gather here to discuss an issue that touches the lives of every single person, ‘Child Rights’. You may ask, why are child rights important? Well, let’s start with the basics. Children are the future of our world. They are the ones who will take our place and shape the world years from now. So, it’s important they grow up in a safe, healthy, and loving environment.

Firstly, let’s talk about the right to life and survival. Every child has the right to live, to grow, and to develop to their full potential. This means they should have access to good food, clean water, and healthcare. But sadly, many children around the world don’t get these basic needs. We must work together to change this.

Secondly, let’s discuss the right to education. Education is like a magic key. It opens doors to new opportunities and helps children to grow into responsible adults. It teaches them to dream big and to work hard to achieve those dreams. But sadly, many children are kept away from school. We must ensure that every child, no matter where they come from, has the chance to go to school and learn.

Next, we have the right to protection. Every child deserves to live in a place where they feel safe. They should not be hurt, abused, or exploited. It’s our duty to protect them from harm. If we see a child being treated badly, we must step in and help.

Lastly, let’s talk about the right to participation. This means that children should have a say in matters that affect them. They should be listened to and their opinions should be respected. After all, they are the ones who know best about their own lives.

In conclusion, child rights are not just words on paper. They are promises we make to our children. Promises that we will keep them safe, that we will care for them, and that we will respect them. We must work together to make sure these promises are kept.

Remember, every child is special. Every child is important. And every child deserves to have their rights respected. Let’s make a promise today, a promise to stand up for child rights, to fight for them, and to make sure that every child gets the love, care, and respect they deserve.

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Paragraph on Child Rights

Children are the part of society who decides the destiny of the country. Their protection and development is the responsibility of the government of the country, which they fulfilled through child rights. You can have detailed information about it through the paragraphs below. I would suggest you go through all of them to check its usefulness for you.

Short and Long Paragraphs on Child Rights

Paragraph 1 – 100 words.

The term ‘Child Rights’ means some basic rights that every child of a nation should have. The Child Rights are available for children without any religious, racial or any other discrimination. Almost all the countries of the world have become serious for the rights to children. They are making every effort in this step.

Our Indian government has also done commendable work in this direction. The most suitable example of it, is making primary education free and compulsory for every child. Making child labour a criminal offence is another great work by the Indian Government. We should also stand in support of Child Rights.

Paragraph 2 – 120 Words

The United Nations and the Government of India have determined the rights and policies for children. Children get the rights of their identity, security, education, health, food, and equality right from their birth, without any caste, religion and gender discrimination.

According to the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act 2005, child rights include all rights of children (boys and girls) which were accepted by the United Nations Children’s Rights Convention on 20 November 1989 and agreed by the Government of India on 11 December 1992.

Child Rights include rights to live, growth/development, protection, participation and education etc. These child rights are available to all children in India without any discrimination or delay. They prepare children for a better future.

Paragraph 3 – 150 Words

There was a declaration of Child Right called ‘Geneva Declaration of Child Right in 1924, which the United Nations adopted in 1959. India implemented this Child Rights on 20 November 2007 in every part of the Nation. These rights are for saving children from abuses, trafficking and violence, and working on their all-round development.

The Child Rights act in India ensures that every child of India has the right to identity, health, education, family-life, opinion. It also provides every child with protection from violence, armed conflict and exploitation as well. These are the fundamental rights of children in India without discrimination based on the caste, religion, colour or any other.

‘Child’s Rights’ is a very crucial term that seeks everyone’s attention. The Indian Government has created a constitutional body in 2007, which keeps its eye on the matters related to the rights of children in India.

Paragraph 4 – 200 Words

Not only India but the whole world has laid great emphasis on the development of its children. The governments of all the countries are working at their level to promote the childhood and mental development of children, just as the child gets the right to live from the 20th week of pregnancy in India.

Children are that part of society which lacks social knowledge and awareness. Anyone can misuse their innocence and put them in child abuse. They are the most vulnerable, hence are most affected by the society which can destroy their childhood as well as their life completely.

We have witnessed it many times in our society that some mentally unhealthy parents put their child in a very deplorable situation due to their inability or desire to work. These children don’t get what they need or deserve and forcibly work to feed themselves and their family.

It is sometimes when children raise their voice for what they need, but the society ignores them. The child rights like the right to education, right to expression and right to survive will yield them the power they should have to build a strong future for them. Child Right is important to establish the foundation of a nation.

Paragraph 5 – 250 Words

The ‘Child Rights’ is a constitutional and essential term that our society needs the most. Child Right includes all the basic rights that our constitution provides to the children of India. The child right is for survival, protection, development and participation of the children which nation should necessarily grant them.

According to the Indian Constitution, every boy and girl under the age of 18 is a child, and it is the part of life in which they experience the most of the mental growth. They should have some basic rights to attain freedom and enjoy life so that they can differentiate between justice and injustice.

India’s commission for the protection of children’s rights (act 2005 and amended in 2006) has some basic and special provisions for every child in India. The Child Right Commission ensures the rights of every single child and keeps a record of it for future programmes.

Some fundamental rights of children under the constitution are the right to education, right to life, the right to protection and freedom of expression and right to identity. To make all these right reach every child of India, the government is constantly working on promoting some awareness programmes and campaigns.

Although the Government of India and many public institutions are taking important steps in the field of child rights, all of us also need to extend our support. We should immediately report the complaint of any child abuse happening around us or in our knowledge to the nearest police station.

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

Ans. Child rights can help children to get rid of exploitation and give them chance to get education.

Ans. National Commission for Protection of Child Rights is established for welfare of children.

Ans. The 11th fundamental duty asks to education to children.

Ans. Child is exploited by labour, pornography and harassment in India.

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What the data says about abortion in the U.S.

Pew Research Center has conducted many surveys about abortion over the years, providing a lens into Americans’ views on whether the procedure should be legal, among a host of other questions.

In a  Center survey  conducted nearly a year after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that  ended the constitutional right to abortion , 62% of U.S. adults said the practice should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% said it should be illegal in all or most cases. Another survey conducted a few months before the decision showed that relatively few Americans take an absolutist view on the issue .

Find answers to common questions about abortion in America, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Guttmacher Institute, which have tracked these patterns for several decades:

How many abortions are there in the U.S. each year?

How has the number of abortions in the u.s. changed over time, what is the abortion rate among women in the u.s. how has it changed over time, what are the most common types of abortion, how many abortion providers are there in the u.s., and how has that number changed, what percentage of abortions are for women who live in a different state from the abortion provider, what are the demographics of women who have had abortions, when during pregnancy do most abortions occur, how often are there medical complications from abortion.

This compilation of data on abortion in the United States draws mainly from two sources: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Guttmacher Institute, both of which have regularly compiled national abortion data for approximately half a century, and which collect their data in different ways.

The CDC data that is highlighted in this post comes from the agency’s “abortion surveillance” reports, which have been published annually since 1974 (and which have included data from 1969). Its figures from 1973 through 1996 include data from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and New York City – 52 “reporting areas” in all. Since 1997, the CDC’s totals have lacked data from some states (most notably California) for the years that those states did not report data to the agency. The four reporting areas that did not submit data to the CDC in 2021 – California, Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey – accounted for approximately 25% of all legal induced abortions in the U.S. in 2020, according to Guttmacher’s data. Most states, though,  do  have data in the reports, and the figures for the vast majority of them came from each state’s central health agency, while for some states, the figures came from hospitals and other medical facilities.

Discussion of CDC abortion data involving women’s state of residence, marital status, race, ethnicity, age, abortion history and the number of previous live births excludes the low share of abortions where that information was not supplied. Read the methodology for the CDC’s latest abortion surveillance report , which includes data from 2021, for more details. Previous reports can be found at  stacks.cdc.gov  by entering “abortion surveillance” into the search box.

For the numbers of deaths caused by induced abortions in 1963 and 1965, this analysis looks at reports by the then-U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, a precursor to the Department of Health and Human Services. In computing those figures, we excluded abortions listed in the report under the categories “spontaneous or unspecified” or as “other.” (“Spontaneous abortion” is another way of referring to miscarriages.)

Guttmacher data in this post comes from national surveys of abortion providers that Guttmacher has conducted 19 times since 1973. Guttmacher compiles its figures after contacting every known provider of abortions – clinics, hospitals and physicians’ offices – in the country. It uses questionnaires and health department data, and it provides estimates for abortion providers that don’t respond to its inquiries. (In 2020, the last year for which it has released data on the number of abortions in the U.S., it used estimates for 12% of abortions.) For most of the 2000s, Guttmacher has conducted these national surveys every three years, each time getting abortion data for the prior two years. For each interim year, Guttmacher has calculated estimates based on trends from its own figures and from other data.

The latest full summary of Guttmacher data came in the institute’s report titled “Abortion Incidence and Service Availability in the United States, 2020.” It includes figures for 2020 and 2019 and estimates for 2018. The report includes a methods section.

In addition, this post uses data from StatPearls, an online health care resource, on complications from abortion.

An exact answer is hard to come by. The CDC and the Guttmacher Institute have each tried to measure this for around half a century, but they use different methods and publish different figures.

The last year for which the CDC reported a yearly national total for abortions is 2021. It found there were 625,978 abortions in the District of Columbia and the 46 states with available data that year, up from 597,355 in those states and D.C. in 2020. The corresponding figure for 2019 was 607,720.

The last year for which Guttmacher reported a yearly national total was 2020. It said there were 930,160 abortions that year in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, compared with 916,460 in 2019.

• How the CDC gets its data: It compiles figures that are voluntarily reported by states’ central health agencies, including separate figures for New York City and the District of Columbia. Its latest totals do not include figures from California, Maryland, New Hampshire or New Jersey, which did not report data to the CDC. ( Read the methodology from the latest CDC report .)
• How Guttmacher gets its data: It compiles its figures after contacting every known abortion provider – clinics, hospitals and physicians’ offices – in the country. It uses questionnaires and health department data, then provides estimates for abortion providers that don’t respond. Guttmacher’s figures are higher than the CDC’s in part because they include data (and in some instances, estimates) from all 50 states. ( Read the institute’s latest full report and methodology .)

While the Guttmacher Institute supports abortion rights, its empirical data on abortions in the U.S. has been widely cited by  groups  and  publications  across the political spectrum, including by a  number of those  that  disagree with its positions .

These estimates from Guttmacher and the CDC are results of multiyear efforts to collect data on abortion across the U.S. Last year, Guttmacher also began publishing less precise estimates every few months , based on a much smaller sample of providers.

The figures reported by these organizations include only legal induced abortions conducted by clinics, hospitals or physicians’ offices, or those that make use of abortion pills dispensed from certified facilities such as clinics or physicians’ offices. They do not account for the use of abortion pills that were obtained  outside of clinical settings .

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The annual number of U.S. abortions rose for years after Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure in 1973, reaching its highest levels around the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher. Since then, abortions have generally decreased at what a CDC analysis called  “a slow yet steady pace.”

Guttmacher says the number of abortions occurring in the U.S. in 2020 was 40% lower than it was in 1991. According to the CDC, the number was 36% lower in 2021 than in 1991, looking just at the District of Columbia and the 46 states that reported both of those years.

(The corresponding line graph shows the long-term trend in the number of legal abortions reported by both organizations. To allow for consistent comparisons over time, the CDC figures in the chart have been adjusted to ensure that the same states are counted from one year to the next. Using that approach, the CDC figure for 2021 is 622,108 legal abortions.)

There have been occasional breaks in this long-term pattern of decline – during the middle of the first decade of the 2000s, and then again in the late 2010s. The CDC reported modest 1% and 2% increases in abortions in 2018 and 2019, and then, after a 2% decrease in 2020, a 5% increase in 2021. Guttmacher reported an 8% increase over the three-year period from 2017 to 2020.

As noted above, these figures do not include abortions that use pills obtained outside of clinical settings.

Guttmacher says that in 2020 there were 14.4 abortions in the U.S. per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. Its data shows that the rate of abortions among women has generally been declining in the U.S. since 1981, when it reported there were 29.3 abortions per 1,000 women in that age range.

The CDC says that in 2021, there were 11.6 abortions in the U.S. per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44. (That figure excludes data from California, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey.) Like Guttmacher’s data, the CDC’s figures also suggest a general decline in the abortion rate over time. In 1980, when the CDC reported on all 50 states and D.C., it said there were 25 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44.

That said, both Guttmacher and the CDC say there were slight increases in the rate of abortions during the late 2010s and early 2020s. Guttmacher says the abortion rate per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 rose from 13.5 in 2017 to 14.4 in 2020. The CDC says it rose from 11.2 per 1,000 in 2017 to 11.4 in 2019, before falling back to 11.1 in 2020 and then rising again to 11.6 in 2021. (The CDC’s figures for those years exclude data from California, D.C., Maryland, New Hampshire and New Jersey.)

The CDC broadly divides abortions into two categories: surgical abortions and medication abortions, which involve pills. Since the Food and Drug Administration first approved abortion pills in 2000, their use has increased over time as a share of abortions nationally, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher.

The majority of abortions in the U.S. now involve pills, according to both the CDC and Guttmacher. The CDC says 56% of U.S. abortions in 2021 involved pills, up from 53% in 2020 and 44% in 2019. Its figures for 2021 include the District of Columbia and 44 states that provided this data; its figures for 2020 include D.C. and 44 states (though not all of the same states as in 2021), and its figures for 2019 include D.C. and 45 states.

Guttmacher, which measures this every three years, says 53% of U.S. abortions involved pills in 2020, up from 39% in 2017.

Two pills commonly used together for medication abortions are mifepristone, which, taken first, blocks hormones that support a pregnancy, and misoprostol, which then causes the uterus to empty. According to the FDA, medication abortions are safe  until 10 weeks into pregnancy.

Surgical abortions conducted  during the first trimester  of pregnancy typically use a suction process, while the relatively few surgical abortions that occur  during the second trimester  of a pregnancy typically use a process called dilation and evacuation, according to the UCLA School of Medicine.

In 2020, there were 1,603 facilities in the U.S. that provided abortions,  according to Guttmacher . This included 807 clinics, 530 hospitals and 266 physicians’ offices.

While clinics make up half of the facilities that provide abortions, they are the sites where the vast majority (96%) of abortions are administered, either through procedures or the distribution of pills, according to Guttmacher’s 2020 data. (This includes 54% of abortions that are administered at specialized abortion clinics and 43% at nonspecialized clinics.) Hospitals made up 33% of the facilities that provided abortions in 2020 but accounted for only 3% of abortions that year, while just 1% of abortions were conducted by physicians’ offices.

Looking just at clinics – that is, the total number of specialized abortion clinics and nonspecialized clinics in the U.S. – Guttmacher found the total virtually unchanged between 2017 (808 clinics) and 2020 (807 clinics). However, there were regional differences. In the Midwest, the number of clinics that provide abortions increased by 11% during those years, and in the West by 6%. The number of clinics  decreased  during those years by 9% in the Northeast and 3% in the South.

The total number of abortion providers has declined dramatically since the 1980s. In 1982, according to Guttmacher, there were 2,908 facilities providing abortions in the U.S., including 789 clinics, 1,405 hospitals and 714 physicians’ offices.

The CDC does not track the number of abortion providers.

In the District of Columbia and the 46 states that provided abortion and residency information to the CDC in 2021, 10.9% of all abortions were performed on women known to live outside the state where the abortion occurred – slightly higher than the percentage in 2020 (9.7%). That year, D.C. and 46 states (though not the same ones as in 2021) reported abortion and residency data. (The total number of abortions used in these calculations included figures for women with both known and unknown residential status.)

The share of reported abortions performed on women outside their state of residence was much higher before the 1973 Roe decision that stopped states from banning abortion. In 1972, 41% of all abortions in D.C. and the 20 states that provided this information to the CDC that year were performed on women outside their state of residence. In 1973, the corresponding figure was 21% in the District of Columbia and the 41 states that provided this information, and in 1974 it was 11% in D.C. and the 43 states that provided data.

In the District of Columbia and the 46 states that reported age data to  the CDC in 2021, the majority of women who had abortions (57%) were in their 20s, while about three-in-ten (31%) were in their 30s. Teens ages 13 to 19 accounted for 8% of those who had abortions, while women ages 40 to 44 accounted for about 4%.

The vast majority of women who had abortions in 2021 were unmarried (87%), while married women accounted for 13%, according to  the CDC , which had data on this from 37 states.

In the District of Columbia, New York City (but not the rest of New York) and the 31 states that reported racial and ethnic data on abortion to  the CDC , 42% of all women who had abortions in 2021 were non-Hispanic Black, while 30% were non-Hispanic White, 22% were Hispanic and 6% were of other races.

Looking at abortion rates among those ages 15 to 44, there were 28.6 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic Black women in 2021; 12.3 abortions per 1,000 Hispanic women; 6.4 abortions per 1,000 non-Hispanic White women; and 9.2 abortions per 1,000 women of other races, the  CDC reported  from those same 31 states, D.C. and New York City.

For 57% of U.S. women who had induced abortions in 2021, it was the first time they had ever had one,  according to the CDC.  For nearly a quarter (24%), it was their second abortion. For 11% of women who had an abortion that year, it was their third, and for 8% it was their fourth or more. These CDC figures include data from 41 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

Nearly four-in-ten women who had abortions in 2021 (39%) had no previous live births at the time they had an abortion,  according to the CDC . Almost a quarter (24%) of women who had abortions in 2021 had one previous live birth, 20% had two previous live births, 10% had three, and 7% had four or more previous live births. These CDC figures include data from 41 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

The vast majority of abortions occur during the first trimester of a pregnancy. In 2021, 93% of abortions occurred during the first trimester – that is, at or before 13 weeks of gestation,  according to the CDC . An additional 6% occurred between 14 and 20 weeks of pregnancy, and about 1% were performed at 21 weeks or more of gestation. These CDC figures include data from 40 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

About 2% of all abortions in the U.S. involve some type of complication for the woman , according to an article in StatPearls, an online health care resource. “Most complications are considered minor such as pain, bleeding, infection and post-anesthesia complications,” according to the article.

The CDC calculates  case-fatality rates for women from induced abortions – that is, how many women die from abortion-related complications, for every 100,000 legal abortions that occur in the U.S .  The rate was lowest during the most recent period examined by the agency (2013 to 2020), when there were 0.45 deaths to women per 100,000 legal induced abortions. The case-fatality rate reported by the CDC was highest during the first period examined by the agency (1973 to 1977), when it was 2.09 deaths to women per 100,000 legal induced abortions. During the five-year periods in between, the figure ranged from 0.52 (from 1993 to 1997) to 0.78 (from 1978 to 1982).

The CDC calculates death rates by five-year and seven-year periods because of year-to-year fluctuation in the numbers and due to the relatively low number of women who die from legal induced abortions.

In 2020, the last year for which the CDC has information , six women in the U.S. died due to complications from induced abortions. Four women died in this way in 2019, two in 2018, and three in 2017. (These deaths all followed legal abortions.) Since 1990, the annual number of deaths among women due to legal induced abortion has ranged from two to 12.

The annual number of reported deaths from induced abortions (legal and illegal) tended to be higher in the 1980s, when it ranged from nine to 16, and from 1972 to 1979, when it ranged from 13 to 63. One driver of the decline was the drop in deaths from illegal abortions. There were 39 deaths from illegal abortions in 1972, the last full year before Roe v. Wade. The total fell to 19 in 1973 and to single digits or zero every year after that. (The number of deaths from legal abortions has also declined since then, though with some slight variation over time.)

The number of deaths from induced abortions was considerably higher in the 1960s than afterward. For instance, there were 119 deaths from induced abortions in  1963  and 99 in  1965 , according to reports by the then-U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, a precursor to the Department of Health and Human Services. The CDC is a division of Health and Human Services.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published May 27, 2022, and first updated June 24, 2022.

Support for legal abortion is widespread in many countries, especially in Europe

Nearly a year after roe’s demise, americans’ views of abortion access increasingly vary by where they live, by more than two-to-one, americans say medication abortion should be legal in their state, most latinos say democrats care about them and work hard for their vote, far fewer say so of gop, positive views of supreme court decline sharply following abortion ruling, most popular.

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Youth perspectives on child rights, stories and insights from adolescents around south asia.

In 2019, the world marked 30 years since the signing of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. As part of its commemoration, UNICEF ROSA asked youth from around the region about the challenges they faced accessing their rights and which rights they feel are most important for children today. This is what they told us.

“In my opinion, all fundamental rights are equally important for a child's growth and development. This includes the right to education, health and security. In the absence of any one right the others will not be completely achieved. For example, if a child is getting a quality education without having access to health facilities, learning won’t be optimal as their health will be affected. Similarly, if a child has access to proper health services but has no protection, the child's life may be in danger.”

Country: Nepal

“I believe that children’s rights may be broadly classified into survival, development, protection and participation. But, to me, education is the most important right a child can have. As a volunteer teacher, I use part of my free time teaching children who have lost their parents, and therefore have to work during the day in order to survive. I know that, through education, they can have a better understanding of the world, they can improve as people and they can create a better 21st century. I also teach these children about their rights because I believe that, when a child knows what their rights are, they will stand to get these rights.”

Country: Afghanistan

“I am very grateful to say that, as a child, I’ve had access to education, healthcare, clean water, quality food and protection. My parents could afford this all when I was small. But I have seen many kids who were not as privileged as I was. Even as a child I could understand what they were going through and how much they had suffered. I wanted to give them the rights I had that they didn’t have access to. Still today, millions of children suffer because their rights are being violated. I want to take action, help them and protect their rights.”

Country: Sri Lanka

“I am a normal guy from a small village in Bangladesh. When I was a child, I was happy. But today I realise that many children are not happy as we used to be because their families are not able to support them properly. Children suffer a lot nowadays: family issues, financial problems, family members that fight. All of this has a huge effect on children, including their mental state and their behaviour. As a result, the society and the country are also affected by this.

Everyone, not only parents, should try to ensure that children get the right care and that they have access to a safe environment when they grow up. Then our society and the country will benefit from that.”  

Country: Bangladesh

“I believe that children should have the right to live in an environment where they can be ensured of quality food, clean water and healthcare. After that, education is one of the most important rights of any child. I am doing a lot to protect children's rights in my community. Whenever I see that something isn’t right in my family, I try to help change that. I also motivate my relatives to give to their children the opportunity to go to school and get a good education.”

“Children should at least have access to the basic rights, such as clean water, healthy food and good healthcare. They should also grow up in a safe and peaceful environment. We should always treat our children with care.”

“Being Bhutanese, I feel that every child should have access to education, healthcare, clean water and food. However, there are children whose parents cannot afford to provide these basic needs. In cases like this it is the duty of the government to give them at least free access to education and health, because it is not the child’s fault if they were born into a poor family. Every child should have access to free education, health, clean water and food!”

Country: Bhutan