Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.3935/zpfz.74.2.01
Children’s Rights in Front of Contemporary Challenges – Children as a Goal or as a Means?
Dubravka Hrabar
; Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Childhood is a very limited period of one’s life, but at the same time crucial for transforming a child into an adult. Many children’s rights allow the children to realize the rights in their childhood, far away from different influences present in the world of adults, whose influences might put the children in peril. Social analysis shows that during the last two decades children live in a kind of whirlpool, weighted by desires of their parents or third persons, as well as the social influences that neglect a child’s needs. The intention of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was to protect children in all situations, giving to adults, especially parents, the means to realize all the different children’s rights. The CRC has constructed a new paradigm of putting the child in the middle (so called pedocentrism) precisely because children are dependent on adults. The adults’ role in a child’s life is enormously important because of the child’s dependence on them. However, they may misuse it by using children for the fulfilment of their wishes and ideas. Such a change of approach puts children in the position of being an object in social and familial relations. Originally devised as the highest principle in dealing with a child – the best interest of the child – seems to be abused in some situations nowadays. This happens when adults’ desires hide behind children’s interests regardless of whether this might be attributed to the parents, activists or political groups. Since the time when the CRC was adopted until today, some serious objections have appeared, mostly put forward by legal theorists, warning that the CRC did not foresee various social behaviours that harm children today. According to them children’s rights are characterised by a lack of sufficient scope, autonomous realization by children or a coherent philosophy. Furthermore, it is claimed that it is unnecessary to catalogue children’s rights, that there is a need for better protection. It is also stated that the CRC has an anti-family orientation, it is a reflection of the neocolonialism of the West, and that “childism” has replaced parental authority. This article discusses these criticisms and warns of a new devastating phenomenon, increasingly dangerous for children – gender ideology. This “lifestyle”, if applied to children directly, annuls the child’s right to identity and health. The post-modern era seems to destroy the natural way of living, founded on the idea of unlimited liberty without responsibility. Children’s lives are imperilled by various Internet and social networks which have creeped in children’s everyday life. There is no doubt whatsoever that particular children’s rights are facing extinction. Apparently, there is a constantly growing need to protect children from dangerous ideas presented by adults. If this is not done, children will again become the object instead the subject of children’s rights.
Keywords
children’s rights; Convention on the Rights of the Child; gender ideology
Hrčak ID:
319105
URI
Publication date:
28.6.2024.
Visits: 0 *