Essay: Examining Health Equity and Human Rights in Child Rights

This essay delves into the critical intersection of health equity and human rights, specifically focusing on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It explores various facets of child rights, including the definition of a child, the importance of the convention, and the protection of children from exploitation and discrimination. The essay examines key issues such as corporal punishment, family separation, and the impact of poverty on child rights, highlighting instances where the convention's articles are breached. It analyzes the role of UNICEF in monitoring child development and addressing violence against children, ultimately concluding that while the convention aims to protect child rights, it struggles to address domestic violence and family-related challenges effectively. The essay references key literature and provides a comprehensive overview of the subject matter.

Running head: Health Equity and Human Rights
Health Equity and Human Rights
Essay
System04104
7/28/2018

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Convention on the Rights of the Child
The rights of children’s are considered as human rights of children that ensures special
attention and care of the minors. The general definition of a child, according to Convention
on the Rights of the Child (held in Geneva in 1989), is any human being under the age of 18
years. The children’s rights include their rights of living and association with their parents,
human identity, and the basic needs like food, education, healthcare, and physical protection.
The main focus of this child right convention is to protect the children from criminal
activities such as child labour, harassment, and provide freedom from any discrimination on
the basis of race, gender, disability, or ethnicity (UNICEF, 2018).
Corporal Punishment
The corporal punishment can be defined as the punishment given by the parents to their child
for misbehaving or his tantrum (United Nations Human Rights, 2018). When adults (Parents)
are making any decision that affects children rights, the child has right to raise his/her voice
about the concern and issues against it. But the problem is that we cannot expect a poor child,
having not the facility of proper food aware of the rules and regulations about the child rights.
The child thinks that it is the responsibility and work to do such types of work to earn some
money for food arrangement (Holden, et. al., 2014). The Article 12 which states ‘Respect for
the views of the child' but the parents enforce their decisions on the child. This is the breach
of article 12 of the convention. Some poor people also force their child to work in factories,
coal mines or shops, and hotels etc. to work and earn some money for food. And if the child
avoids doing the work, he has been punished by his parents. Poverty is another reason behind
this, which force parents to send their small child to work.
Family Separation/marriage breakdown and access
Another problem related to child harassment within the home by parents. Generally, it is
observed that the step parents behave so badly and children are beaten and harass at the home
and no one blames for the same. Even the children are not capable in to know their rights
against the domestic violence in their own house. This is another breach of article 12 where a
child cannot raise their voice even the child was torcher by the parents (Collins, 2016). The
children are facing depression because of the family conflicts between the parents. After that,

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if they separated the child has to face the problem related to adoption that who will retain the
authority of child in parents. These all issues are totally ignored in the convention of the child
rights.
The UNICEF, who cares for the child well-being and measure the child development, is
responsible for taking care of such violence with the children. UNICEF measure and collects
data from all the countries regarding the child development and publish it for the people who
interested to take care of the rights of children (Human Rights Watch, 2018). From the above
consideration, it can be said the convention on the rights of the child try to care every aspect
of child rights but it failed to protect the domestic violence and harassment of children
because of the family problems like parental separation.

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References
Collins, M.T. (2016) A child’s right to participate: Implications for international child
protection. The International Journal of Human Rights, 21(1), pp. 14-46.
Human Rights Watch (2018) Child labour [online]. Available from:
https://www.hrw.org/topic/childrens-rights/child-labor [Accessed: 28/07/2018].
Holden, G.W., Brown, A.S., Baldwin, A.S. and Caderao, K.C. (2014) Research findings can
change attitudes about corporal punishment. Child abuse & neglect, 38(5), pp. 902-908.
UNICEF (2018) The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most rapidly and widely
ratified international human rights treaty in history [online]. Available from:
https://www.unicef.org/crc/ [Accessed: 28/07/2018].
United Nations Human Rights (2018) Convention on the Rights of the Child [online].
Available from: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx [Accessed:
28/07/2018].

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