Children have rights!
Five children are playing, laughing and shouting outside my window in the Pestalozzi Children's Village. As different as they are, all five have one thing in common: they share the same rights, children's rights - highly personal rights that are inalienable and cannot be transferred to others.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child celebrates its 30th anniversary next year. It is the most successful international treaty of all time. Signed by Switzerland in 1991, it came into force in this country in 1997 - rather late by international standards. What has changed since then? What is different for children today than in the past?
The Convention states: All children and young people share the same rights, regardless of their gender, skin colour, nationality, language and residence status, national, ethnic or social origin, as well as their political beliefs, disability or any other living condition. And no one, i.e. no adult, may deprive them of these rights or transfer them to themselves.
This catalogue is long and sounds a little abstract, but it is important. Because all too often, the idea that all people and all children are equal ends with the colour of their skin, their social class or their way of life.For parents, this means that children's rights are not just the rights of their own children, but of all children with whom their own children are involved. Because even if Switzerland has committed itself first and foremost as a state to upholding them, children's rights are realised above all in everyday life: in the family, at school, in the neighbourhood and in the community.
One significant change was the recognition of the child as an independent person and a fully-fledged human being. However, this does not mean that the child should be treated like an adult. Rather, they are in a developmental phase that demands different rights of their own.
According to this international convention, childhood lasts until the child's 18th birthday. For many states, this has meant that they have had to revise the age of consent upwards in their regulations for the protection of children. This concerns, among other things, the prohibition of child marriages and protection against sexual exploitation. In contrast, the age of consent often had to be revised downwards.
The will of the child is not the same as the best interests of the child
When it comes to implementing children's rights, the best interests of the child always come first. But what sounds obvious is anything but simple in everyday life: what does it actually mean to decide in the best interests of the child? In everyday family life, does this mean that parents must fully submit to the will of the child? Or is it more about negotiating interests, wishes and goals that you want to realise as a family and as an individual member of the family?
The best interests of the child are not necessarily the same as the will of the child. Adults and authorities are allowed to make decisions for children and young people. This distinction may sound hair-splitting at first glance, but it has major implications when it comes to the application of children's rights in difficult individual cases.
For example, if an authority decides that the welfare of a child in a family is acutely at risk and then removes the child from the family, it is acting in the child's best interests, even if the child says it wants to stay with the family. In this case, the child is unable to assess the situation itself and cannot recognise the danger to its own well-being.
Children want to be heard
As a parent, are you allowed to digitally track where your child is? Can you simply show pictures of your child on social media and the internet? Where does a child live if the parents get divorced? Children should be allowed to express their opinions and get involved in all matters that affect them.
Children must also be given the opportunity to inform themselves and form their own opinions. Parents play an important role here: they can teach children how to deal with information, respect their opinions and involve them in decisions. The family is a community in which children gain their first democratic experiences.
It's evening and the children have gone home to play. Hopefully, I think, they too have people around them who love them, give them freedom but also set boundaries so that they can develop and do well. And hopefully we are all aware that the realisation of children's rights in Switzerland is a task that has not yet been completed, even after 21 years.
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About the Pestalozzi Children's Foundation
The Pestalozzi Children's Foundation is an internationally active children's aid organisation. Children and young people have been at the centre of its activities since 1946. The Children's Village in Trogen is a place of peace-building, where children from Switzerland and abroad learn to deal with cultural and social differences through exchange. In twelve countries around the world, the foundation provides disadvantaged children with access to quality education.
www.pestalozzi.ch