Rights of the Child

The Rights of the Child was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989.

  • Who is a child? Every person under age eighteen qualifies as a child.
  • Who qualifies for child’s rights? Every child.
  • What is the role of the state? The state must implement these rights discussed.
  • What is the role of every person? Every action a person does must be performed in the child's best interest. st.


What are the rights of the child?

A child has the right to:

  1. Life and development
  2. Identity: name, nationality, and family ties
  3. Live with parents unless it is not in the child’s best interest. In this case, the child has the right to maintain contact with his/her parents.
  4. Preserve name, nationality, and family ties
  5. Leave one nation and re-enter his/her own nation to be with his/her parents
  6. Not be kidnapped
  7. Express his/her opinion and have this opinion considered
  8. Express ideas, obtain information, and make that information known
  9. Have thought, conscience, and religion
  10. Associate with whom they choose
  11. Privacy
  12. Have access appropriate information
  13. Be raised by their parents and have the state provide assistance for this
  14. Protection from abuse and neglect
  15. Protection by another guardian if their parents cannot care for them
  16. Adoption
  17. Seek refuge
  18. Special care if disabled
  19. The highest standard of health attainable
  20. Periodic review of placement if state has placed them outside the home
  21. Social security
  22. Adequate standard of living for that child’s development (mentally, physically, spiritually, morally, and socially)
  23. Free and mandatory education
  24. Education that can develop child’s potential
  25. Practice their own culture, even if their culture is in the minority
  26. Rest, leisure, play, and cultural activities
  27. Protection from work harmful to their health, education, and development
  28. Protection from involvement in drug use, production, or distribution
  29. Protection from sexual exploitation and abuse
  30. Protection from sale, trafficking, and abduction
  31. All other forms of exploitation
  32. Protection from torture and deprivation of liberty
  33. Protection from armed conflict: no child under fifteen can have an direct involvement, be recruited into armed forces, or be harmed by armed conflict
  34. Rehabilitative care for armed conflict, torture, neglect, maltreatment, or exploitation
  35. Administrative or juvenile justice: considers a child’s age works to reintegrate them into society

[1] “Convention on the Rights of the Child.” Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 2007. Committee on the Rights of the Child. 13 Sep. 2007. <http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/pdf/crc.pdf>.