An In-depth Look at Article 16 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
During our e-mail series on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a constant theme has been the recurring intervention of government power in the relationship between children and their parents. Broad discretion for the state is particularly prevalent in the Convention’s “freedom” provisions, which guarantee choices to children when it comes to expression, information, religion, and association.
Perhaps the most troubling of these “freedom” provisions is article 16, which stipulates that “no child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence.” More so than any other section of the Convention, article 16 invokes the power of the government in ways previously unseen and untested in America’s legal and political history.
Paradigm Shift
The key to understanding article 16 is found in its absolute language: no child is to have his or her right to privacy violated. According to American law professor Cynthia Price Cohen, article 16 “uses the strongest obligatory language in the human rights lexicon to protect the child’s privacy rights.” Read the rest of this entry »
Part I of an In-depth Look at Article 13 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
This week, we continue our series on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child by considering Article 13, which states that “the child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice.”
The crux of this article is the child’s “right to information.” Children access information through what they are taught and what they discover on their own. This week, we will consider the Convention’s implications on what children are taught.
Read the rest of this entry »
An In-depth Look at Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
Last week, we looked at how Article 9 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child gives the government authority to intervene in the decisions of parents simply by appealing to the child’s “best interests.” This week, we continue our in-depth analysis of the CRC by examining Article 12, which says: “States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.” Read the rest of this entry »
ParentalRights.org Executive Director Rich Shipe joined the Don Kroah Show on WAVA 105.1 in Washington DC last night for a discussion on the crucial need for the Parental Rights Amendment. Listen to the broadcast here (go to Wednesday January 16, 2008 — Hour 1, Minute 11:00).
Playwright Julie Pascal’s recent article decrying the teaching of religion to children offers a revealing glimpse into some of the dangerous potential found within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Referring to teaching religion to children as a form of child abuse, author Julie Pascal cites the Convention’s wording on the importance of “respect for the views of the child.”
The UNCRC has been challenged because of it’s reliance on government definitions of the “best interest of the child” — rather than observance and respect for a parent’s concept of what is right for their child.
Read more about some of the dangers of the UNCRC.
Keeping with the child-privacy-from-the-parents theme… In New Zealand a 16 year-old girl ran away from home and the parents are trying to find her. The police know where she is but they can’t tell the parents because of “privacy rights of children.”
Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ had this to say in a press release, “Politicians, with the support of the UN, Children’s Commissioner and Youth Law Project to name a few, have sought to increase children’s rights without considering the vital role of parents, and ways of strengthening families rather than splitting them.”
What we are seeing in New Zealand, the UK, and other parts of the world is heading our way. The question is, will we stop it? Will we stand up and fortify the rights of parents for the good of children?
Everyone, (ok, almost everyone) agrees that children need their parents. Let’s make a stand together. Please consider (after signing the petition) contributing to ParentalRights.org so we can further spread the message and then telling your friends about the campaign.
Should public libraries keep a child’s check-out history secret from his or her parents? The Wisconsin legislature is debating this question.
The Milwaukee Jounal Sentinel reports:
The measure would allow parents who request it to obtain records that document their children’s library use.
“We’re saying it’s a parental right,” said Rep. Sheryl Albers (R-Reedsburg), the author of the bill.
But Rep. Marlin Schneider (D-Wisconsin Rapids), who used Assembly procedural rules to block final approval of the bill, said he thought the measure was terrible public policy.
“It’s a major invasion of the right of privacy of children,” he said. “Children need to understand their rights are protected, and if government won’t protect their rights nobody will.”
The “right of privacy of children” from their parents? Are parents the enemies of children? Our government should be supporting the important relationship of the child and parent rather than undermining it. It is not possible to be an effective parent if you can not know what your child is doing.
This type of thing is happening everywhere from the local level to the federal court level. We’ve got to take a stand to protect the child-parent relationship. The essential question here is who should be making the decisions for your children on what materials they look at, the library or you as the parent?
Tell your friends to get involved by signing the Parental Rights Amendment petition.
The greatest threats to parental rights are coming from the federal courts and encroaching international law. Read on for more details. Read the rest of this entry »
From the November/December 2006 Court Report Cover Story
By Michael P. Farris
Human rights should not be viewed as being in conflict with the promotion of pluralism. At the core, any theory of human rights views the decisions of individuals for their own lives to be presumptively superior to governmental authority. Of course, there are limits to this theory, and not all things that are claimed to be a human right survive logical analysis. But there is something about the right of private judgment that is fundamental to the idea of human rights.
One of the most important applications of this right of private judgment, at least to the homeschooling community, is the right of parents to decide how their children should be educated. Parents should have a prior right to make such decisions that is superior to any claim of government.
Pluralism, properly defined, is a compatible goal with human rights. In an operational sense, pluralism means that people of different races, religions, and views should live together with mutual respect and as equal citizens.
A government may promote pluralism. But if pluralism and human rights are to mean anything, they must mean that a person may not be compelled to give up his or her individual views in the name of making a pluralistic society. In fact, coerced pluralism is a self-defeating objective. Read the rest of this entry »
From the March/April 2005 Court Report Cover Story
By Michael P. Farris
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a threat that longtime homeschoolers know well. If ratified by the United States Senate, it would ban spanking in our country. Homeschooling would no longer be governed by state law, but by a 10-member committee of child welfare “experts” in Geneva. Even our right to teach our children that Jesus is the only way to God would be in jeopardy.
Aware of this threat, homeschoolers and other parental rights advocates have been ready for battle for some time. In fact, the reason that this treaty was never sent from the State Department to the Senate for ratification, after being signed by then President Bill Clinton on February 16, 1995, is that it faced certain defeat. As a friend of traditional families, President George W. Bush has simply not moved it at all.
However, a new challenge to American families and our constitutional republic has been launched by the federal judiciary. Under a legal doctrine sanctioned by the United States Supreme Court, the federal courts have begun to treat unratified treaties as binding on the United States. Already one federal district court has employed this doctrine to declare that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC or CRC) is binding on the United States even though it has never been ratified by the Senate. Read the rest of this entry »
