ABSTRACT
The issue of children’s rights has received growing attention in legal, philosophical, and social scientific discourse. With the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, United Nations General Assembly, 1989) at the end of the twentieth Century, an array of children’s rights was officially recognized internationally, and provisions were made to facilitate the implementation of these rights in national and international law and public policy. Several aspects of the CRC are noteworthy. First, the Convention includes recognition of a variety of different types of rights, broadly differentiated within contemporary research on children’s rights into the two broad categories of nurturance (protection) and self-determination (participation) rights (Rogers & Wrightsman, 1978; Ruck, Abramovitch, & Keating, 1998). Nurturance rights pertain to the obligations of others (e.g., parents, society) to provide for or safeguard children’s emotional, psychological, or physical welfare and include, as examples, children’s right to medical care, freedom from harsh punishment, and the provision of emotional support and food and clothing. Self-determination rights pertain to children’s freedoms, choice, and input or say into matters that affect them, and include (as manifest in the CRC) such issues as the right to freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief, the right to privacy and to choose one’s friends or recreational activities, and children’s right to have their views heard when accused of wrongdoing or in custody disputes. The Convention also stipulates that the principles of equality and respect for human dignity should apply to children everywhere, and that children should be brought up in the spirit of these ideals, in particular, those of “peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality, and solidarity” (CRC, Preamble). In various ways, the Convention also recognizes that children’s rights are based on a conception of children as rational agents whose perspectives should be respected and whose capacities for informed decision making ought to be cultivated by agents of socialization. For example, children are accorded the freedom to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers” (CRC, Article 13), and to have their voices heard (either directly or through a representative) in “any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child” (CRC, Article 12). At the same time, the CRC also regards the child as a special agent who “by reason of his (sic) physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care” (CRC, Preamble). Accordingly, adult guardians should provide “in a manner consistent with the evolving capacities of the child” (CRC,
Article 5) appropriate direction and guidance in exercising the rights recognized by the Convention, with the best interests of the child as their overriding concern. The Convention further recognizes that children’s rights are not themselves absolute, stipulating limitations on the exercise of children’s rights in the form of the protection of “public safety, order, health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others” (CRC, Article 14).
