Changes in Childhood and Children Rights since Victoria era

Changes in Childhood and
Children Rights since
Victoria era
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Childhood is the most important phase of someone's life and it contributes directly to the
overall development of their personality when they grow up. The foundation of healthy and good
life is childhood. Therefore, efforts must be made to improve the education and providing all the
rights to children. Victoria era is considered as children dominant society as children used to
work from childhood and as a result it impacted their development and health etc. In the present
essay, critical analysis of the changes in childhood and children rights since Victoria era has
been done. Also, it been analysed whether these have improved the situation for children in the
UK.
The childhood in Victoria era was hard as children use to work in various factories,
mines and other places where there was risk associated to their health and life. This also
impacted their education as the children in UK spent their most of the time taking care of home,
relatives and work. The period was from 1830 to 1900. Childhood is the most important phase of
life and during the early 19th century in UK the population of children were at increasing rate and
also this period was of great industrialization and urbanization and people were moving from
rural areas to urban areas (VICTORIAN CHILDREN. 2021). Due to this, the urban areas were
flooded with people and children but the resources were scarce. The life of children in this
period was not like a childhood but the life of children was poor. There were two categories of
children in the Victoria era, one who were from poor families and one who were from rich
families (Seaton, 2017). The life of poor children was too hard as they have to work when there
was time to play with toys and the life children that belonged to rich families were spoilt and
were living much better life than the children that belong to the poor families. The children that
belong to the wealthy families rarely communicated with their parents as their parents used to
hire nannies who would teach them and brunt the children.
But, it was not the case with the children who belonged to poor families as they have to
go out for work to support their families and also no nourishment was provided to these children.
The children have to work in public jobs as their parents have a wrong notion that more children
means more income to the family. The poor children have to perform various types of jobs such
as sweeping, farming, working in textiles, mills and mining factories etc (Lyndon, 2019). But the
concept of childhood changes during early 19th century, and they viewed childhood as a separate
phase than adulthood and various social reforms were made after that. Reformers in UK
considered that the present living condition was not good and believed that children must be
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protected from physical and moral harm. They observed that children more than going to schools
and were indulged in doing hard jobs.
Therefore, various inventions were done which contributed to the rights of children and
improved the situation for children in UK. There have been various changes in the children
rights in Victoria era (Lawson, 2018). These changes may or may not have positive or negative
impact. In some cases, these changes have positively affected the situation of children and in
some cases they have not. The children right in United Kingdom has become their first priority,
there are various legislations that has been implemented so that the conditions of children can be
enhanced and improved. The United Kingdom parliament has made sure that equal opportunities
are been provided to every child in nation irrespective of their religion, colour, background etc.
The concept related to children began to change in the early 19th century (McInally and
Campbell, 2020). It was being analysed that before this time the poor children lived really
difficult lives. Poor children were being engaged in earning money for their family and the
uncertain death from any type of disease in early age was common. After some time, the UK
parliament starting taking these conditions seriously and they were being engaged in improvising
the situation by implementing adequate legislations and laws. It included the following:
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is one of the most widely
reformed human right treaty which has assisted in changing the lives of people. Commitment
was provided and given to every single child that their rights will be fulfilled and also full
protection will be given to them. International legal framework was being adopted in this.
Convention has achieved the aim that was being set up by them. In this many governments were
being inspired through this as they begin to change laws made for children. Governments by
these interventions made sure that they invest more in children health, education and nutritional
intake (Madziva and Thondhlana, 2017). Policies were being made in all these procedures. It has
also supported more of the children to get their voices heard. Despite all these changes, the
convention is still not understood and implemented in many parts of the world, the voices of
children are not heard. The global changes, changes in environment and the rise in digital
technology are completely changing the childhood. These conventions were brought to make the
lives of children better and also their situation adequate. To some extent these conventions has
brought positive changes in lives of children.
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