1. Children’ s Rights

2.  Children are particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses due to their physical and intellectual immaturity. Their ill-treatment calls for special attention because children cannot defend themselves, their opinions are seldom taken into account and they can only rarely form their own organisations to work for change.  Of the 2.2 billion children in the world 1 billion live in poverty. In an attempt to escape from this poverty, all around the world millions of children are forced to work long hours, often in hazardous conditions, with no access to education. In some countries young children are forced to become soldiers, sold into slavery or married to strangers. CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

3. International Convention  The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is an international treaty that recognises the human rights of children, defined as persons up to the age of 18 years. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989 and has been ratified by 192 countries, which makes it the most universally accepted treaty on human rights.  The treaty covers all children everywhere without discrimination. Everything from a child’s right to be free from exploitation to the right to their own opinion is spelled out. The CRC sets standards on the rights to which every child is entitled and which it is the responsibility of global society to uphold. Convention of the Rights of the Child  An overview of the rights can be found at the UNICEF website here:  http://www.unicef.org/ crc/files/Rights_overvie w.pdf http://www.unicef.org/ crc/files/Rights_overvie w.pdf WHAT IS BEING DONE……

4.  Child marriage is a violation of human rights—it takes away the freedoms set out in the CRC and has a significant impact on the health and educational opportunities of the young people involved. In the case of girls it leads to early pregnancy and the risk of death in childbirth. Early marriage is most common in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Surveys show that 5 per cent of women in Bangladesh were married between the ages of 10 and 14, and in the Rajasthan province of India the figure is as high as 56 per cent.In all parts of the world early marriage affects girls more than boys A child marriage Takia lives in Niamey, the capital city of Niger in Africa. She is 12 years old, has never been to school and lives with her husband and one-year- old daughter in a one-room hut. Because Takia’s father is very poor, he believed the only way he could guarantee a secure future for his daughter was to find a husband for her to marry at a young age. Takia was never asked if she wanted to marry—it was seen as her duty to respect the decision of her parents. The man that her father chose was 45.Takia is not happy but she had no choice. When asked what she would have done if she had, she replied: ‘If I had a choice I would have wanted to wait and find the one I love. But now it is too late. Now I prefer not to think about it—I don’t have any options.’ CHILD MARRIAGE Eight-year-old Laxmi, dressed in bridal finery, above, waits with her family members, unseen, prior to her marriage ceremony, outside the Jalpa Mata temple in Rajgarh, about 155 kilometres northwest of Bhopal, India. Ignoring laws that ban child marriages, hundreds of children, some as young as seven years old, are married in a centuries-old custom across central and western India.

5. USING THE TABLE ON THE PREVIOUS PAGE, LOCATE THE COUNTRIES LISTED, ON THE MAP BELOW AND LABEL THE COUNTRIES:

6. Activities READ THE SNAPSHOT ABOUT ‘A CHILD MARRIAGE’. A) COMPARE THE OPPORTUNITIES THAT TAKIA HAS IN LIFE WITH THOSE THAT YOU HAVE. B) SUGGEST WAYS IN WHICH EARLY MARRIAGES LIKE THIS CAN BE AVOIDED.