ABSTRACT
With the rise in food prices that has, on several occasions, resulted in riots, the issue of the human right to food has increased in political and academic importance. Yet it is the children, the most vulnerable and dependent victims of hunger, who suffer the greatest harm when deprived of food and essential nutrients, often leaving them with a lifetime of physical and emotional impairment. Child Hunger and Human Rights intentionally focuses on the rights of children to be free from hunger, as distinguished from the economic rights all people have. There is considerable overlap, of course, between children and adults with regards to the right to adequate levels of nutritious food. But, according to David Gordon et al., “children’s needs are different in degree and kind from those of adults. Their experience of violations of normative behaviour can be distinct from the experience of their parents and other adults” (2003: 3). Young children and infants suffer the pain of hunger without any ability to control or alleviate their hunger. They, unlike adults, cannot work or forage for food. Children can never be held responsible for not providing for their own needs, as they are dependent on the actions of others to provide for their welfare. Indeed, the moral obligation to feed and protect small children is generally accepted.
