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Child Rights
What are child rights?
At JFCU, Promotes the four guiding principles of The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; Non-discrimination, The best interests of the child, Survival, Development and Protection and Participation
Why are child rights important?
Children are innocent, trusting and full of hope. Their childhood should be happy and loving. Their lives should mature gradually, as they gain new experiences. But for many children, the reality of childhood is altogether different. It’s estimated that about 64.82 deaths/1000 live births (2009 estimate) in Uganda will die before they celebrate their first birthday.
Right through history, children have been abused and exploited. They suffer from hunger and homelessness; work in harmful conditions, high infant mortality, and deficient health care and limited opportunities for basic education. A child needs not to live such a life. Childhood can and must be preserved. Children have the right to survive, develop, be protected and participate in decisions that impact their lives.
Non-discrimination (Article 2)
The Convention applies to all children, whatever their race, religion or
abilities; whatever they think or say, whatever type of family they come from. It doesn’t matter where children live, what language they speak, what their parents do, whether they are boys or girls, what their culture is, whether they have a disability or whether they are rich or poor. No child should be treated unfairly on any basis.
Best interests of the child (Article 3)
The best interests of children must be the primary concern in making decisions that may affect them. All adults should do what is best for children. When adults make decisions, they should think about how their decisions will affect children. This particularly applies to budget, policy
and law makers.
Right to life, survival and development (Article 6)
Children have the right to live. Governments should ensure that children survive and develop healthily.
Respect for the views of the child (Article 12)
When adults are making decisions that affect children, children have the right to say what they think should happen and have their opinions taken into account. This does not mean that children can now tell their parents what to do. This Convention encourages adults to listen to the opinions of children and involve them in decision-making -- not give children authority over adults. Article 12 does not interfere with parents' right and responsibility to express their views on matters affecting their children. Moreover, the Convention recognises that the level of a child’s participation in decisions must be appropriate to the child's level of maturity. Children's ability to form and express their opinions develops with age and most adults will naturally give the views of teenagers greater weight than those of a preschooler, whether in family, legal or administrative decisions.
Uganda ratified the United Nations Convention on Rights of the Child. The Charter of Child Rights (CRC) is built on the principle that "ALL children are born with fundamental freedoms and ALL human beings have some inherent rights".
The 1995 Constitution of Uganda also advocates for the children rights.
34. Rights of children
- Subject to laws enacted in their best interests, children shall have the right to know and be cared for by their parents or those entitled by law to bring them up.
- A child is entitled to basic education which shall be the responsibility of the State and the parents of the child.
- No child shall be deprived by any person of medical treatment, education or any other social or economic benefit by reason of religious or other beliefs.
- Children are entitled to be protected from social or economic exploitation and shall not be employed in or required to perform work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with their education or to be harmful to their health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.
- For the purposes of clause (4) of this article, children shall be persons under the age of sixteen years.
- A child offender who is kept in lawful custody or detention shall be kept separately from adult offenders.
- The law shall accord special protection to orphans and other vulnerable children.
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Joy for Children Uganda
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P.O Box 15383
Kampala (Uganda)
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Telephone:
+256 414 530 450
+256 414 380 417
+256 712 982 301
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Email:
info@joyforchildren.org
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