Theme : HOW CHILDREN RIGHTS CHANGED THROUGH THE HISTORY
———————————————————————- 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 all 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 him : 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 on the the throne . His aunt wanted to occupy the throne herself , that means to break his , as pharaoh_s child_s andthrone 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 they 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 work 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 ofall 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 and want the children of their countryto 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 , whatraise 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 , whichfrom time to time occured and died out during the human civilizationshistory. It_s war. War is the exeption from all rules , because ithas 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 reachedduring 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 wholeprocess.We think , that history goes the right way , because there_smore and more laws , confirming child_s rights in lots of countries.And we are happy about the developement of those laws , because livingin good circumstances lets us to become more free , more inteligent andeducated generation.