Vaiku teisės

From ancient times children were separate part from people’s community. They had exclusive rights and duties, which changed during ages and ages. In different nations and different groups of people they were different too, though the times were the same.Even in the same nation children rights were equally respected, and violated. For example in ancient Egypt one of the pharaohs ordered to kill all male, new-born Jewish children, because he thought, that the Jewish (Hebrew) people became more powerful tthan they, Egyptians were. According to the Bible, he said unto his people: Behold, the people of Israel Are more and mightier than we. And he said, when ye do the office Of a midwife to the Hebrew women, And see then upon the stools; If it be a son, then ye shall kill him: But if it be a daughter then she shall live. Of course, it was the roughest breaking of children rights. But in the same country, aalmost at the same time, small – aged prince Tuthanchathon sat on the throne. His aunt wanted to occupy the throne herself , that means to break his , as pharaoh’s child’s and throne heir’s, rights, but this time child’s rrights defence worked really strongly , because Tuthanchathon was an Egyptian , not Jewish child , and , of course , pharaoh’s son. The same kind of violation of children rights was in Sparta – they killed children too, but this time – for another reason. From five years age Spartans took their male children to the military trainings. And if a child was too weak for such trainings, they killed him. It’s a strict breaking of child’s rights, because children can’t chose, what physical or mental shape will they born. But the times were changing, so the attitude towards children rights was changing too. Masive and cruel children’s killing was stopped. Of course, that doesn’t mean, that the violation oof child’s rights was stopped too. For example in Middle-ages in Europe parents could hand over their just – born children to abbeys , could chose them any profession they want or even to set up a marriage without asking them. Also children often had to work very hardly, and at work they had to keep up equally with adults, otherwise they were punished. But after some hundreds years passed , that kind of kind of child’s neglect had vanished ttoo , and step by step children were admitted to the circle of all people , who have full rights. Despite of such relief, children rights and their defence remains a unsolved problem. Now-a-days our civilization has reached very high levels, but it can’t deal with it .We still have lots of situations, where child’s rights are neglected. One of them has occurred and continues to worry world’s society in China. It’s linked with the number of people, who live in China, because that number increases, and already has reached more than 1.2 billion! So, in that country all families, that have underage children, must pay additional taxes. That badly worsens social situation of such families, so parents can’t support their children as good as they require .Other countries are indignant at such situation. In Saudi Arabia the government even pays more then $ 20.000 to the mothers, who born children, because they respect child’s rights and want the children of their country to live happily. The Constitutions of many countries contain some points about child’s rights. Lithuanian Constitution has such points too .For example they say , that :“ Government takes care about families , what raise up their cchildren at home , while they are underage „. That shows that Lithuania respects child’s rights too. So, we’ve travelled through the history from ancient times to our days. You should’ve mentioned that I’ve missed one thing, which from time to time occurred and died out during the human civilizations history. It’s war. War is the exception from all rules, because it has no rules. During a war there’s just one right – the right of the strongest – he can do whatever he wants, not respecting other rights, even child’s rights. The best example is the Balkan war, where from illnesses, hunger and aggression die children. The United Nations Organization is really concerned about that. They proved that by establishing a fund, which is called “Help Children of Sarajevo” As you see, when wars occur, all the success that was reached during thousands of years in child’s rights protection vanishes. But when wars die out, those rights regain their former respect, that’s why wars are just rude exceptions, which can’t stop the whole process. We think that history goes the right way, because there are more and more laws, confirming child’s rights in lots of countries. And we are hhappy about the development of those laws, because living in good circumstances lets us to become freer, more intelligent and educated generation.