Theme : HOW CHILDREN RIGHTS CHANGED THROUGH THE HISTORY

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From ancient times children were separate part from peoples comunity.

They had exlusive rights and duties , which changed during ages and

ages . In diferent nations and diferent groups of people they were

diferent too , though the times were the same . Even in the same

nation children rights were equally respected , and violated. For

example in ancient Egypt one of the pharaohs ordered to kill aall male ,

new-born jewish children , because he thought , thst the jewish

(hebrew) people became more powerful than they , egyptians were.

According to the Bible , he said unto his people:

Behold , the people of Israel

are more and mightier than we.

And he said , When ye do the office

of a midwife to the hebrew women ,

and see then upon the stools ;

if it be a son , then ye shall kill hhim :

but if it be a daugter then she shall live.

Of course , it was the roughest breaking of children rights. But in the

same country , almost at the same time , small – agged prince

Tuthanchathon sat oon the the throne . His aunt wanted to occupy the

throne herself , that means to break his , as pharaoh_s child_s and

throne heir_s, rights,but this time child_s rights

defence worked realy strongly , because Tuthanchathon was an egyptian ,

not jewish child , and , of course , pharaoh_s son.

The same kind of violation of children rights was in Sparta – they

killed children too , but this time – for another reason. From five

years age spartians took their male children to the military trainings.

And if a child was too weak for such trainings , they killed him.It_s

a strict breaking of child_s rights , because children can_t chose ,

what physical or mental shape will tthey born.

But the times were changing , so the attitude towards children

rights was changing too. Masive and cruel children killing was stopped.

Of course , that doesn_t mean , that the violation of child_s rights

was stopped too. For example in Midle-ages in Europe parents could hand

over their just – born children to abbeys , could chose them any

profession they want or even to set up a marriage without asking them.

Also children often had to wwork very hardly , and at work they had to

keep up eaqually with adults , otherwise they were punished. But after

some hundreds years passed , that kind of kind of child_s neglect had

vanished too , and step by step children were admitted to the circle of

all people , who have full rights.

Despite of such relief , children rights and their defence remains a

unsolved problem . Now-a-days our cilivization has reached very high

levels , but it can_t deal with it .We still have lots of situations,

where child_s rights are neglected.One of them has occured

and continues to worry world_s society in China. It_s linked with the

number of people , who live in China , because that number fastly

increases , and allready_ve reached more than 1.2 billion! So , in

that country all families , that have underaged children , must pay

aditional taxes . That badly worsens social situation of such families ,

so parent_s can_t support their children as good as they require .

Other countries are indignant at such situation. In Saudi Arabia the

goverment even pays more then $ 20.000 to the mothers , who born children ,

because they respect child_s rights aand want the children of their country

to live happily. The Constitutions of many countries contain some points

about child_s rights. Lithuanian Constitution has such points too .

For example they say , that :“ Goverment takes care about families , what

raise up their children at home , while they are underaged „. That shows,

that Lithuania repsects child_s rights too.

So , we_ve traveled throught the history from ancient times to our

days. You should_ve mentioned , that I_ve missed one thing , which

from time to time occured and died out during the human civilizations

history. It_s war. War is the exeption from all rules , because it

has no rules. During a war there_s just one right – the right of the

strongest – he can do whatever he wants , not respecting other rights ,

even child_s rights. The best example is the Balcan war , where from

illnesses , hunger and agression die children. The United Nations

Organization is really concerned about that. They proved that by

establishing a fund , which is called “ Help Children Of Sarajevo „

As you see , when wars occur , all the success , that was reached

during thousands of years in child_s rights protection ,, vanishes.

But when wars die out , those rights regain their former respect ,

that_s why wars are just rude exeptions , which can_t stop the whole

process.We think , that history goes the right way , because there_s

more and more laws , confirming child_s rights in lots of countries.

And we are happy about the developement of those laws , because living

in good circumstances lets us to become more free , more inteligent and

educated generation.