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Getting Support : Safe Passage Foundation
Children’s Rights | from Jules - Tuesday, September 02, 2003
accessed 3104 times In light of some recent discussions I’ve had on this and other web sites, I wanted to define what exactly I believe children’s rights to be and the issues regarding those rights. These are basic principles that guide my own involvement with matters related to the Family as well as my life outside of all this. I am interested in knowing what the participants here think about these issues. (A child is defined here as from the point of birth until 18.) 1. Children have inherent rights.
As humans, we have fundamental and basic rights. This is the founding principle behind every free society, democracy and the US Constitution. Rights are not something that we must beg for, or that are subject to the whim of any government or authorities but are things that we are entitled to. In their most simple form, human rights are those basic standards without which people cannot live in dignity.
Human rights also extend to children. Children are not the property of their parents, and their rights cannot be revoked at a parent’s whim or due to their parent’s religious beliefs, ignorance or even callous disregard. The parent’s rights do not supersede those of their child. A child is a person and not a sub-person, and children are to be loved, respected and cared for as individuals. Due to the special vulnerability of children, there are additional rights and protections that must be granted to children.
There are four basic premises upon which the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child is based. These are:
Non-discrimination:
The essential message is equality of opportunity. Girls should be given the same opportunities as boys. Refugee children, children of foreign origin, children of indigenous or minority groups and children with disabilities should have the same rights as all others.
Best interests of the child:
When authorities make decisions which affect children, the best interests of children must be a primary consideration. This principle relates to decisions by courts of law, administrative authorities, legislative bodies and both public and private social-welfare institutions.
The right to life, survival and development:
The right to survival and to development should be ensured "to the maximum extent possible". The word "development" relates not to only physical health, but also mental, emotional, cognitive, social and cultural development.
The views of the child:
Children should be free to have opinions in all matters affecting them, and those views should be given due weight "in accordance with the age and maturity of the child". The underlying idea is that children have the right to be heard and to have their views taken seriously.
The specific fundamental rights of children that are outlined in this document include:
* To receive protection and care to ensure their optimal well-being.
* To be protected from physical or mental harm and neglect.
* To be protected from sexual abuse or exploitation.
* That their parents take primary responsibility to provide support for their child
* To live with their parents, except in extreme cases where to do so would harm their well-being.
* To be free from economic exploitation.
* Entitlement to the highest attainable standard of health and health care.
* Free and compulsory basic education.
* To not be illegally imprisoned or detained
* That no child should be tortured or suffer cruel or degrading treatment.
* To be protected from abduction and trafficking
* That no child under 15 takes any part in armed conflict
* To freely enjoy their own culture, religion and language.
* That children who have suffered mistreatment, neglect or exploitation receive appropriate support for recovery and rehabilitation.
* To be made aware of and thoroughly educated regarding these rights.
2. Responsibility: We are responsible to protect the rights of children
Children are dependent on their caregivers, and as such caregivers have a responsibility to ensure that children’s rights are not violated. This responsibility extends to the community and the entire society of which a child is a citizen. It’s not enough to simply not engage in the violation of a child’s rights. As a society we have an obligation to active protect our children and to act when their rights are being violated.
While the parents of a child are primarily responsible for ensuring their well-being and optimal development (as defined above), since the essential concern is to act in the best interests of the child, there are times when the state must intervene and ensure that the child’s rights are protected. This would include cases of abuse, exploitation, neglect, failure to provide support, and to provide methods of recovery and rehabilitation for children whose rights have been violated.
3. Accountability: People who violate a child’s rights must be held accountable
When the basic rights of children have been violated, the perpetrators must be held accountable. If we do not adequately and appropriately respond to the violation of the rights of children, then those rights are not protected and are in essence non-existent. Where clear evidence of abuse of the rights of children exists, the perpetrators must be named, shamed and held accountable for their actions and before the law. Unless a community, society and the state acts in a decisive manner upon information regarding such violations, abusers will be tempted to limit actions to public relations exercises, without actually ceasing their mistreatment.
No one has the ability to absolve those who have been proven to be abusers. An understanding of the perpetrator is irrelevant, as are the circumstances in which such violations occurred. Forgiveness and accountability are separate and distinct issues, and forgiveness can only be offered by the wronged party and only to the specific perpetrator. No one can demand forgiveness from anyone, let alone from a child for the violation of their rights. One can and must demand liability and accountability of the perpetrator for their actions. |
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Reader's comments on this article Add a new comment on this article |  from Craven de Kere
Monday, May 10, 2004 - 00:55
(Agree/Disagree?)
If anyone knows the status of this fund and the means through which to contribute to it please let me know.
Regards,
CdK
(reply to this comment)
| from Nancy
Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 13:32
 (Agree/Disagree?)
Maybe I can scrounge up my research paper on the Constitutional Rights of Children, which I wrote in law school. The law supports most of your positions. People can always argue what they want, especially those religious cult/sect members who elect to deny the rights of their children and legal action is necessitated to have those rights of their children enforced. Words are cheap. Yet, the law is enforceable.
It's interesting how a majority of religious sect members arguments attempt to divert the focus of the matter to that of religious freedom. Yet, what they are speaking of is their own alleged freedom. They are attempting to trump the basic human and civil rights of an individual, who happens to be a minor, with their own claims of religious freedom. What they do not address is that such civil liberties, such as religious freedom, are allowed in our society to the point that they begin to intrude on the rights of others. Those "rights of others" include the rights of citizens who happen to be minors.
(reply to this comment)
|  From Nick
Wednesday, September 03, 2003, 14:16
 (Agree/Disagree?)
You say “What they do not address is that such civil liberties, such as religious freedom, are allowed in our society to the point that they begin to intrude on the rights of others. Those "rights of others" include the rights of citizens who happen to be minors.”
What the hell you talking about? My son has no rights as far as religious freedom goes. As long as my son is a minor and still a child I have the right to subject him to whatever religious practices and beliefs I feel he should be subjected to.
He really doesn't have a fucking choice if I want to send him to the local church or take him along to a Wicca gathering. Children do not have the knowledge and experience to make those kinds of choices and until they do it is the parents responsibility to do what they deem fit.
If I wanted to take my son to a family home in the area for one of their "weekly inspirations" and you came and told me I was infringing on the rights of my minor child, or putting my son in harms way because of the choice I made, I would laugh in your face and tell you to get your liberal dumb ass off my doorstep before I show you off with the barrel of a gun. (reply to this comment) |
| | From Nancy
Wednesday, September 03, 2003, 14:56
(Agree/Disagree?)
For the sake of readers, despite my own impatience with such ignorance, taking your poor kid to any "family home in the area for one of their 'weekly inspirations,'" on first blush does not violate any of that child's civil rights and Constitutional freedoms. Yet, if you put that poor kid in that home where he is not educated and is made to solicit on the streets or in neighborhoods, then you have violated his rights. There are two landmark cases on these topics, child labor and lack of education on religious grounds, one involved Jehovah’s Witnesses, the other Amish, respectively. A child cannot be made or even allowed to solicit in any arena religious literature, even after school hours or on weekends, regardless of how the adult involved couches what the child is doing. The Supreme Court ruled that it violates child labor laws. One may get away with it in some instances, but the law still remains and it still violates that child's rights to be free of forced labor or any type of labor. Further, the Family's short history as a religious sect, like many of the other religious sects that have attempted to qualify, does not qualify for the exemption granted the Amish in the U.S. by the Supreme Court to mandatory school attendance laws. Therefore, if you take your kid out of school, like the Family has done, and claim that you are exercising your religious freedom, and do not educate that child past the eighth grade in a state accepted educational curriculum, then you are violating that child's right to an education. So has ruled the U.S. Supreme Court, and for people like you that know little or nothing, that is the final say in the country. There is no appeal and no mechanism for review. Further, as I said before, just because every little case is not prosecuted, does not mean that it is not illegal and contrary to American law. There are also some very limited exceptions, but the Family would not qualify because they do not have the "300 years of religious history" in our country that the Supreme Court found to be a deciding factor in allowing the Amish to conclude a child's education at eighth grade on religious grounds. As I also stated previously, the issue is one of rights (of the child) vs. religious freedoms (of the parent), not religious freedom vs. religious freedom. Read a little closer, Nick. Concentrate! Even you can get it! These are just the tip of the iceberg. We haven’t even begun to discuss the issues and criminal acts of child abuse and molestation and how religious beliefs do not trump the rights of the child to be free of such violations. Zerby can claim all she wants that God told her “a little fondling” is not sexual abuse, but the law says it is and claiming religious freedom is just an aggravating factor, not a defense. Good God! This is elementary. (reply to this comment) |
| | | | | | | | From Matt
Tuesday, September 23, 2003, 15:16
(Agree/Disagree?)
Just a question, do we or do we not live in a Christian nation? Wasn't this great land that we live in (U.S.A) founded on Christianity? If so then doesn't it say in the Bible " Children obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right." and also "Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. " (Gal. 6:1-3)
How is that contravening any human rights? To say that obeying how we have been instructed by God to raise our kids is an infraction on our Constitution, then the Constitution of the US of A would be wrong, no?
Granted some people are not going to abide by all that is written in there! Some will change it to their own advantage willfully, and some out of sheer ignorance, but is that the fault of the Bible, the beilef or the person?
To place the blame on the doctrine or the belief is the same as giving someone a detailed instruction manual to a bike, but instead of taking it and using it; they get the basic idea of what they think it means and try putting the bike together based on that! And then saying that the manual was wrong. (reply to this comment) |
| | | | | | | | From anovagrrl
Tuesday, September 23, 2003, 17:29
(Agree/Disagree?)
No, we do not live in a Christian nation. We live in a secular nation in which people of the Christian faith are the majority. The U.S. Constitution was founded on the ideals of the Enlightenment--an 18th century intellectual movement that swept Europe & its colonies. Autonomy, individualism, capitalism, secularism, democracy, humanism are all enlightenment concepts.
You will find very little support for the principles of democracy in the Bible. "Biblically based" government is hierarchical, theocratic, and autocratic. The framers of the U.S. Constitution and founding fathers (people like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington) subscribed to a belief in God called "deism." A deist is someone who "believes in the existence of a God or supreme being but denies revealed religion, basing his belief on the light of nature and reason." Christianity--particularly the form practiced by TF--is a revealed religion which does not always base its beliefs on the light of reason.
Because the country WAS NOT founded on Christianity, we enjoy the benefit of separation of church and state. Among other things, this means children have human rights and are not the solely the chattel of their parents. Under a "Biblically based" system of civil law, children would have no rights. Neither would women, for that matter.(reply to this comment) |
| | From Nancy
Thursday, September 25, 2003, 17:45
(Agree/Disagree?)
Exactly! There would be stonings for adultery, crucifixions for theft, amputations, etc. The "laws" of the Bible are barbaric, contradictory, sexist, bigoted, patriarchal, etc. The Bible was written during a time when the world was feudalist, agrarian, warring and extremely underdeveloped. The Bible, when applied literally, has little if anything to do with what we know today as “Christian society.” The Bible has even less to do with human rights, and it is almost directly contradictory to the civil rights we know today. Literal application of biblical principals is quite frightening. Rather, most modern Christians would admit that it is the “spirit” of the Bible which should be the ruler by which one lives their life, not the literal application. (reply to this comment) |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | from Eaglebleeds
Wednesday, September 03, 2003 - 01:13
(Agree/Disagree?)
I agree with everything but I do have a question.
Taken from your article. "and their rights cannot be revoked at a parent’s whim or due to their parent’s religious beliefs, ignorance or even callous disregard. The parent’s rights do not supersede those of their child."
When I have children I believe I have the right to teach them what I believe. But I`m not part of a group and never will be again so, what I teach them will be morals and values that I`ve learned from the bible and life. It won`t be similar to how we grew up because there won`t be someone telling me what to believe and what to do with my kids. Maybe your article is very clear and when I read it I was looking from a different angle so got the wrong interpretation. Childrens rights are very important. And I believe that the parent should be godly and put his childrens needs, desires and rights above his own ways. In TF too many parents left their kids (our generation) in combos. I know mine didn` want too but they chose to obey the leaders, who supposedly were a direct link to Jesus. They`ve apologized to me and my brothers and sisters for putting us 2nd. I forgive them and realise they were just trying to do what they believed was right. It was a mistake of them to put their faith in something wrong and in corrupted leadership.
(reply to this comment)
| From Jules
Wednesday, September 03, 2003, 15:04
(Agree/Disagree?)
I agree with you. To raise their children in their own culture and faith is one of the rights both children and parents have. It's only when practices or customs violate children's rights (as defined above) that the government has a responsiblity to intervene. In India, for example, the Devadasi cult of Yelamma prostitutes children as young as 10 years old. Children have the right to be protected from sexual exploitation so while people have the right to worship a Hindu goddess if they want to, this practice is illegal. (reply to this comment) |
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