AFRO-NETS> Food for not so childish thoughts

[Claudio Schuftan <aviva@netnam.vn>]

Food for not so childish thoughts
---------------------------------


Human Rights Reader 44

An introduction to Children's Rights

Review of some of the general underlying principles:

1. The motivation to realize all human rights (HR) should be based on 
a sense of justice and solidarity; compassion is not the right moti-
vation.

2. In this domain, Governments have Obligations of Result (e.g., 
achieving the Millennium Goals) and Obligations of Conduct (e.g., im-
plementation of a plan to achieve the latter). Remember that they do 
not have the option to indefinitely defer efforts to ensure the full 
realization of these obligations; they have to immediately begin to 
take steps to fulfil them. In that sense, we can identify HR viola-
tions through the direct action of States and through their omis-
sions. The latter, because there are minimum core State obligations 
to ensure the satisfaction of, at the very least, minimum levels of 
each of the violated rights. Remember also that resource scarcity 
does not relieve States from these minimum obligations and that all 
basic needs are HR (but not vice-versa). HR cannot be prioritized ei-
ther, but actions to reduce and end their violation can and should e 
prioritized (in the form of concrete, explicit plans).

3. Moreover, HR have no time limit: up until a specific right is 
fully realized, this right is violated. This brings into serious 
question the setting of goals to 'halve poverty or malnutrition'. 
[So, should we continue to pursue goals such as halving malnutrition 
by 2015...?].

4. Always keep in mind that a HR approach does not only change what 
we should do, but it will also change why and how we do our work. The 
first change is to recognize poor people -- and children -- as pro-
tagonists in their development; this requires changing the mentality 
of all sorts of development workers. There simply cannot be a HR-
based society without individuals who have internalized the HR phi-
losophy (hence this Reader).

Realizing children's rights:

5. All human beings have HR, whether or not a particular country has 
ratified a specific universal instrument. For example, children in 
the USA -- which has not yet ratified the Convention of he Rights of 
the Child (CRC ) -- have every bit the same rights as children living 
in countries that have ratified the CRC.

6. Rights are to be seen as our exercise of free will and of choice 
and are, therefore, dependent on the claim holders' capacity to have 
their rights enforced. To have rights is not dependent on having cur-
rent capacity to exercise or assert them. There is a fundamental dif-
ference between protecting children -- because they are dependent 
(and deserve our compassion) -- and respecting children, because they 
are powerful. [Actually, the CRC prohibits those who already have 
power from exerting that power over children].

7. UN-sanctioned conventional HR basically regulate the relationships 
between individuals and the State. The CRC is different. Towards 
children, it recognizes duties of parents and other non-state duty 
bearers at all levels of society, including at the international 
level.

8. Not infrequently, the violations of children' rights are a direct 
result of the violation of the rights of their care-givers own HR. To 
begin with, a large majority of children whose rights are violated 
live in poor families and poor communities. Therefore, a child-rights 
approach must always also be focused on the alleviation of the pov-
erty of the family. So, when we advocate and mobilize for the reali-
zation of children's rights, we have to do that in the larger context 
of HR, including women's, children's and other pertinent economic, 
social and cultural rights.

9. Always keep in mind that rights are not just claims, but claims 
against someone! Therefore, in the Children's Rights domain (as much 
as in other HR domains), capacity building has to be empowering so as 
to empower children's guardians to confront Government inertia, as 
well as to empower children themselves (yes, children...) to claim 
their rights.

Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:aviva@netnam.vn

Mostly taken from U Jonsson, Realization of Children's Human Rights: 
Charity or solidarity?, Mimeo, 1997.
--
To send a message to AFRO-NETS, write to: afro-nets@healthnet.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@healthnet.org
in the body of the message type: subscribe afro-nets OR unsubscribe afro-nets
To contact a person, send a message to: afro-nets-help@healthnet.org
Information and archives: http://www.afronets.org