SUMMARY

In 1996, several hundred children from around the world drafted The Children's Bill of Rights. The Bill lists the rights that all Children have so that they can grow up free from abuse, thrive in the world, and participate in influencing the shape of their future.

CHILDREN'S RIGHTS

Prevention of Child Abuse is Original Focus

Other the past several years, we have become increasingly aware of the difficulty the world is having ensuring that children are brought up in a way that enables them to thrive. Initially, such concerns focused on obvious forms of child abuse: wars that targeted non-combatants and children, inter-ethnic genocide, child malnutrition, diseased environments, and social and even parental abuse. Efforts were made by some countries, the United Nations, and a plethora of private philanthropic organizations to tackle these abuses, and the first pioneering notions of children's rights emerged. But the children, themselves, had yet to be heard from.

As our understanding of these issues deepened, the concerns went beyond abuse to address more systemic, inter-generational problems. Not only did people become increasingly concerned with whether kids would be able to flourish in today's world, but whether they would be able to flourish in tomorrow's world, a world that will differ in fundamental ways from today's, yet in ways that today we don't still fully understand.

Children's Rights Take On a Larger Perspective

In 1995, an effort was launched to address children's rights and their roles in society from this larger perspective, and to do it through the ideas, needs, and voices of kids themselves. This effort is called The Kids' Campaign. The first project was to design a Children's Bill of Rights. This was accomplished in the Spring of 1996 through the extraordinary medium of Kidlink, an Internet organization that brings together hundreds of school children around the world and provides them with a 'space' in which to express themselves and share their ideas through a wide variety of projects.

The Children's Bill of Rights

The Children's Bill of Rights was drafted and ratified by over 650 children from seven countries. The Rights range from the traditional abuse-prevention ones, to those that will ensure kids the ability to influence the shape of their own future. The Children's Bill of Rights does not ask adults or governments to ratify the Bill before it takes effect. It is adopted by the children themselves, and serves as the basis for their demand that adults treat them as partners in the processes of human progress.

Children, adults and organizations are invited to support the Children's Bill of Rights. You may list your support formally, if you wish, with the CBOR Secretariat.

The CBOR Secretariat

A Children's Bill of Rights (CBOR) Secretariat has been established to coordinate activities surrounding the CBOR, including its broad dissemination and the formation of strategic alliances with other children's organizations.

The Secretariat may be contacted by postal mail, at:

5504 Scioto Road, Bethesda, Maryland, 20816, USA Or, via the Net, at: debivort@umd5.umd.edu
 

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