Children demand respect for their rights as workers

In Bolivia, where there are an estimated 850,000 working children, members of the country’s largest union of child workers, UNATSBO, have sent a proposal to the government in which they call for their rights as workers to be recognised. Several of the children’s demands include legislative amendments to recognise that work for children begins at age six, not at age 14, as the law currently provides; protection against exploitative or hazardous work, or work that hinders a child’s health and physical, mental and social development; and that their salaries be brought in-line with the national minimum wage. Bolivians approved a new constitution last year, and legislators are currently in the process of rewriting existing laws to conform to the new legal code. The children's unions are pushing lawmakers to reform the Code of Children and Adolescents, which governs child labor.They want to ensure that children earn the same wages and have the same financial tools as their adult counterparts. In some sectors, they earn less than half the salary of their adult colleagues. Moreover, children don't have access to savings accounts and often give their earnings directly to their parents. Union members also lobby for safe work environments and for better medical care, especially for children whose jobs present a health risk.
The lack of recognition of children who work forms one of the major obstacles in achieving better living conditions for working children.

Read more:
Child workers of Bolivia Unite!
Niños y adolescentes trabajadores exigen garantías
"Mi fortaleza es mi trabajo" by UNATSBO (the publication is in Spanish only)

The Right Stuff magazine

The Right Stuff magazine was designed and written by more than 30 under 18 year-olds from across England, with the aim of promoting young people’s interest in children’s human rights and encouraging them to take action to achieve change for children. Articles cover a range of topics including the experiences of children in care; how children seeking asylum in the UK are treated; student protests; human rights fashion; protest music; and discrimination based on hair colour

Children's rights to nationality

A child's right to acquire a nationality is evident in the Convention on the Rights of the Child—the main United Nations treaty governing states' human rights obligations towards children. But the way states are supposed to interpret and implement that right is unclear.

In this document, the Open Society Justice Initiative urges the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child—the body that interprets the Convention—to issue a General Comment. The comment would clarify and emphasize the obligation that governments bear for stateless children and would raise the profile of the issue in high-level discussion.

See also:
Children and statelessness - questions and answers

CRIN's Editorial on children's statelessness

The child as citizen

The American Academy of Political and Social Science has decided to open online during January free access to its January 2011 issue of The ANNALS, "The Child as Citizen." This covers the 20th Anniversary of the CRC. The volume, edited by Felton Earls, will be open for free downloads through the end of January, meaning that individuals and institutions do NOT need to have a subscription to the journal to access and download the full-text articles.

Table of Content of the January 2011 Issue:
o Felton Earls - Children: From Rights to Citizenship
o Paula S. Fass - A Historical Context for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
o Geraldine Van Bueren - Multigenerational Citizenship: The Importance of Recognizing Children as National and International Citizens
o Marta Maurás - Public Policies and Child Rights: Entering the Third Decade of the Convention on the Rights of the Child
o Irene Rizzini - The Promise of Citizenship for Brazilian Children: What Has Changed?
o Elizabeth Bartholet - Ratification by the United States of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: Pros and Cons from a Child’s Rights Perspective
o Donald J. Hernandez, Nancy A. Denton, and Victoria L. Blanchard - Children in the United States of America: A Statistical Portrait by Race-Ethnicity, Immigrant Origins, and Language
o James Bohman - Children and the Rights of Citizens: Nondomination and Intergenerational Justice
o Andrew Rehfeld - The Child as Democratic Citizen
o Allison James - To Be (Come) or Not to Be (Come): Understanding Children’s Citizenship
o Judith Torney-Purta and Jo-Ann Amadeo - Participatory Niches for Emergent Citizenship in Early Adolescence: An International Perspective
o Daniel Hart and Robert Atkins - American Sixteen- and Seventeen-Year-Olds Are Ready to Vote
o Mary Carlson and Felton Earls - Adolescents as Deliberative Citizens: Building Health Competence in Local Communities
o Clotilde Fonseca and Maria Eugenia Bujanda - Promoting Children’s Capacities for Active and Deliberative Citizenship with Digital Technologies: The CADE Project in Costa Rica