JUSTIFICATION FOR CHILDREN AS RIGHT HOLDERS
Authors:
Oluwakemi Odeyinde, LLM (UNILAG) BL (UI)
Abstract:
Many writers have suggested that the industrial revolution era in the 18th century uncovered the exploitative child labour. During this period, Charles Dickson, a prominent advocate for children and a victim of child labour exposed the hard labour children faced in his writings. In 1919 Jebb Eglantyne, one of the pioneers of the child rights movement drafted the Declaration on the rights of the child. This declaration was later adopted by the United Nation and became the first ever international instrument that recognised children as right holders. In recognition of the hardship of children those times, the year 1979 was declared as the International year of the child. In 1989 the United Nations Convention on the Right of the child (UN, CRC or the Convention) was adopted to establish a universal charter on the rights of the child. However, the child right movement came with a lot of criticism which still exists today. Prominent among them is the idea that children cannot be right holders because they lack the capacity to make choices. Thus the main objective of this paper is to show the justification for children rights. Thus the first section explored the historical development of the child rights movement. The second section explained the concept of children as right holders. The third section analysed the justification for children rights. The paper was able to establish the fact that the concept of human dignity provides a concrete justification for a child’s right. Thus a harmful traditional practice in Nigeria where a child is allowed to marry at a tender age is an abuse of the human dignity of a child.