It is widely accepted that minors’ health and well-being should be among the principles to guide humanity’s activities all around the world to maximize the chances of raising active and healthy generations of citizens. The UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child was accepted more than thirty years ago to address this issue. The agreement facilitates and promotes the recognition of children’s rights while also protecting their dignity.
Being focused on minors’ own rights, this international agreement regarding children and childhood seeks to challenge some outdated and harmful ideas of the past. Particularly, contrary to the tendency to view children as a form of their family’s property, the document identifies any person under the age of eighteen as an individual human being with a set of inalienable rights. These rights include the ability to grow and develop with dignity during the protected time before reaching adulthood and get healthcare services, social services, and nutrition to guarantee their survival and optimal physical, social, and emotional development. Another critical achievement of the convention relates to the work to promote a departure from child-rearing and parenting practices that involve violence and any form of child exploitation, including forced child labor.
Finally, the discussed agreement encourages any individual who works or is planning to work with children to develop strong attitudes towards child health and contribute to promoting it. The promises I am willing to make to support the convention and all minors include the readiness to treat all children without discrimination on the basis of demographic/cultural characteristics and the determination to report any fact of child abuse that comes to my attention. As for the remaining three promises, as a professional, I will put children’s rights first when making decisions affecting them, consider children’s personal interests in designing measures to promote their development, and support children in seeking better living and social conditions.