Topology Optimizations (Intruder Problem)

1) Introduction 2) Objectives 3) Main Content

3.1 The Convention on the Rights of the Child 3.2 An Overview of the Articles of the convention 3.3 Child Labour

3.3.1 Bonded Labour 3.3.2 Child Labour in India

3.3.3 India’s Reports to the Committee 3.4 Child Soldiers

3.5 Children, Healthcare and HIV/AIDS 3.6 Children in the Criminal Justice System 4.0 Conclusion

5.0 Summary

6.0 Tutor-Marked Assignments 7.0 References/Further Readings

• INTRODUCTION

Children’s rights are not somehow ‘additional’ to human rights; rather, like women's rights they are the application of the key principles of human rights to a sector of humanity that deserves special protection.

We will see that the main treaty in this area is the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and we shall review the powers of the Committee on the Rights of the Child in overseeing the implementation of the Treaty. But, we will also come to understand that children's rights raise particular problems, and cannot be understood purely in the abstract.

Although the Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely adopted of international human rights instruments (even having been adopted by the Sudan People's Liberation Army) we need to appreciate that some of the most acute problems come out of situations where, either through poverty, war, or other factors, civil society and its institutions have broken down. How are human rights to be safeguarded in situations where the institutions that are meant to protect rights are not functioning? We will also examine situations where rights are not protected through a lack of political will, or because cultural forces are deeply embedded and resistant to change.

• OBJECTIVES

By the end of this chapter and the relevant readings, you should be able to:

• describe the basic provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

• explain the functions of the Committee on the Rights of the Child

• explain the main issues relating to bonded labour

• explain the main issues relating to child soldiers

• explain the main issues relating to the right to health care and the problem of HIV/AIDS

• outline the main issues relating to juvenile justice.

• MAIN CONTENTS

Children’s rights are at the core of the UN system. In Article 25 the Declaration itself makes reference to the 'special care and assistance' that is due to mothers and children and clearly, the right to education in Article 26 is of particular relevance to children. Article 24 of ICCPR and Article 10 of the ICESC Rights are also of relevance in this context.

These documents build on earlier statements such as the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924 and the General Assembly Resolution of 1959. There are three other recent documents of international importance that feed into the principles that underlie the Convention:

3 the Declaration on Social and Legal Principles relating to the Protection and Welfare of Children, 1986,

4 the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (The Beijing Rules 1985)

5 the Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict.

Despite the existence of these documents, the need for a coherent and comprehensive statement of the law remained. This was because there were widespread and ongoing abuses of children’s rights. High mortality rates, poor access to health care and .education, the economic exploitation of children and the abuse of children in armed conflict demanded international action.

The Convention was drafted by a working group set up by the UN Commission on Human Rights and consisted of government and UN representatives, members of NGOs and delegates from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by a General Assembly Resolution in November 1989, and came into force in September 1990.

The Child and the Family

The preamble to the Convention includes a paragraph that affirms the family as ‘as the fundamental group of society’ and asserts that ‘the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community’. We have already read criticism from a feminist perspective on the emphasis on the family. Feminists argue that the family can itself be a place of oppression; and we will return to this issue as we continue to consider children's rights; but it is worth pointing out at this stage that there are many connections between women's rights and children's

rights. In particular, one of the major problems is that cultures often contain customs and beliefs about children that, like those that relate to women, see a child as under the care and protection of a male adult.

Thus, any universal statement of the rights of the child must take account of 'the importance of the traditions and cultural values of each people'. We are aware that there are problems when such customs are inconsistent with human rights, and resistant to change (see Article 24(3) in this context). If we are aware that children's rights raise similar problems to women's rights, we also have to take into account the fact that children's rights raise a specific set of issues.

One of the problems for children’s rights is that if one asserts that the family is a ‘natural environment’, it becomes difficult to understand that the family may also be the source of the problem of children's oppression and abuse. This is a complex argument. It is not suggesting that the family should somehow be 'reformed' or abolished; rather, it attempts to point out a key issue for children’s rights; an issue that is inherent in the very notion of the rights of the child. Precisely because the child is not mature, it is dependent on care in the way that able-bodied adults are not. As the preamble goes on to state:

3 ‘the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.’

How does one ensure that the career does not become an abuser? Given that the care relationship involves unequal power, and abuse is always a question of a stronger party imposing its will on a weaker party, it would seem that there is an inescapable pathology to the family. The Convention must, then, assert that it is concerned with nurturing a

‘family environment’ that has an ‘atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding’; moreover, it recognises that abuses of children’s rights are a global problem in both the developing and the developed world:

‘in all countries in the world, there are children living in exceptionally difficult conditions’.

3.2 An Overview of the Articles of the Convention Part I

Article 1 provides a definition: ‘a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years’. A child is thus defined by a lack of majority; in this sense, the child is outside of the law, deprived of legal status and something less than an adult. The exception to this rule, that

‘majority’ can be attained 'earlier' than eighteen if a national law so allows, does not affect this general principle that a child lacks majority.

In this sense, children's rights belong to those that are otherwise deprived of full legal being. .

Article 2 places what we could call both a negative and a positive duty