LAPSED CHILDREN - Tartu Ülikool

LAPSED ÕIGUSAKTIDES CHILDREN IN LEGISLATION
CHILDREN IN LEGISLATION
Signe Kaplan
Ministry of Social Affairs
History
Children have been included in legislation as a separate target group since days of the first
written laws. However, conscious efforts of legal protection of children emerged only in the
beginning of the last century with the rapid development of human rights and the associated
branch of the rights of children.
In modern legislation, children are viewed as a vulnerable group and several measures have
been introduced to protect the children due to the special needs arising from the specific
nature of their development.
It was believed at first that the family was called to protect the children and look after their
well-being, while the state did not interfere with the relations between the parent and child
and the child and society. This approach, however, meant a weak position for the child who
was subject to the supreme authority of the family and parents.
Establishment of international and national foundations
for child protection
The rights of children
were first addressed in
1923
The rights of children were first addressed at the international level in 1923 by Eglantyne
Jebb, founder of the Save the Children organisation. The objective was to achieve
international recognition of certain rights for the children and this led to the formulation of the
five basic rights to be recognised for the children, which were adopted by the general
assembly of the Save the Children Union in 1923 as the Declaration of the Rights of the
Child. A year later, in 1924, this document was also adopted in Geneva by the 5th Assembly
of the League of Nations (predecessor of the UN). The declaration became known as the
1924 Declaration of Geneva and is considered as the starting point for the professional
development of the rights of the child.
Development of the rights of children differs from the development of most other documents
of the international law. The latter have been born as a result of analysis and synthesis of
the national legislation and postulated principles from different countries while the former
began with the creation of international conventions. The principles of the convention were
only later incorporated in the national legislation.
The 1924 Declaration of Geneva was the first document dedicated solely to the rights of
the child. It included five casuistically named basic rights of the child:
• the child must be given the means requisite for its normal development, both
materially and spiritually;
• the child that is hungry must be fed, the child that is sick must be nursed, the
delinquent child must be reclaimed, and the orphan and the waif must be sheltered
and succoured;
• the child must be the first to receive relief in times of distress;
• the child must be put in a position to earn a livelihood, and must be protected
against every form of exploitation;
• the child must be brought up in the consciousness that its talents must be devoted to
the service of its fellow men.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by UN in 1948 included provisions
for the protection of mothers and children and the right to education.
The updated UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1959, became the
second international document dedicated solely to the rights of the child. It was the first
attempt to summarise and describe all the basic needs and rights of the child; it defined 10
principles of the rights of the child, including for the first time the fundamental principle of
modern child protection — the interests of the child should come first in all circumstances.
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LAPSED. CHILDREN