Children’s Right to Equality
The first article of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” This article highlights and reinforces human dignity, human rights, equal opportunity, and non-discrimination for everyone. No one should be deprived of development opportunities because of where they were born, what they believe, or whether they have a disability. Unfortunately, today, there are still situations of exploitation and oppression in which human beings including children are treated as objects.
All children, irrespective of their differences, need all including governments and parents to cherish, respect, nurture and protect them from harm to facilitate their growth and development. Unfortunately, inequality in society perpetuates privileged positions on the socio-political and economic ladder and hampers unprivileged children’s equal rights to development.
The responsibility of ensuring that children with disabilities or those born of de facto unions or out of wedlock should enjoy equal rights in relation to those born from married couples lie with the states. When the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was adopted in 1989, states pledged to improve the living conditions of children in every country. Yet many children, especially girls in the developing countries, do not enjoy their rights due to gender discrimination.
Schools and families have an important role to play in promoting children’s rights. Through impartial instruction teachers can model human equality just by giving students their fair share of attention as they interact with them. Similarly, parents have the duty to give equal love and attention to their children by appreciating their personalities and consistently giving them quality one-on-one time, celebrating their uniqueness, showing them love and giving them quality and genuine compliments.
As Marists of Champagnat, we continue to hold firm to Champagnat’s principle that to educate children well, we must love them all equally by dedicating ourselves entirely to their instruction and character formation. The 22nd General Chapter also invites us to be present in more significant ways and continue responding to the cry of children and young people living on the margins of life.
The Church’s teaching on centrality of the human person invites us to reflect on the following questions: What kind of dignity is there without the possibility of freely expressing one’s thought or professing one’s religious faith? Can there be dignity without a clear juridical framework which limits the rule of force and enables the rule of law to prevail over the power of tyranny? Can men and women ever enjoy dignity if they are subjected to all types of discrimination? What dignity can a person ever hope to find when he or she lacks food and the essentials for survival and, worse yet, when they lack the work which confers dignity? Certainly, these questions remind us that promoting the dignity of the person means recognizing that human beings possess inalienable rights which no one should take away arbitrarily.
Br. Francis Lukong – Secretariat of Solidarity