Why students should know their right.

I have all my rights. So do many others. I have a shelter, my parents do what is best for me, I go to school and I am allowed to join any clubs that interest me; there is an endless amount of things that I need to be thankful for.

How do I know about this? From a young age, I was taught about my rights. Especially in primary school, we spent a substantial amount of time going over how people could help each other gain their rights and I suppose that, much like my fellow classmates, these lessons have stuck with me.

Recently, my school has been focusing on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and we have had meetings, pupil voice forums, teacher training sessions and more-all revolving around children's rights. Whilst this is seemingly brilliant, a lot of children see no point in this. In a first world country we all have our rights, don't we?

No, not at all. I would sit in webinars with important people who had important ideas and I simply could not understand why there are so many people advocating the spread of rights-based information. After some speculation, and many conversations, it became apparent. Of course we need to talk about rights, for without a sufficient amount of knowledge on the topic, how can children be expected to seek help if they are being denied of their rights? They can't!

For many children who have been denied rights, it is all they have ever known, it could feel natural to them, or they could feel that their poor treatment is some fault of themselves. For example, take a child who has a mother seriously addicted to many drugs; they will not be aware of the fact that they are being denied article 33, 'you have the right to be protected from dangerous drugs'.

Teaching children about their rights should be a prevalent thought in the minds of each and every government. We as a society, and more specifically, as schools, need to be teaching children about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child otherwise we are denying article 42 collectively; 'all adults and children should know about this convention'. By teaching the rights in primary and secondary schools, we could be saving lives that we didn't know needed to be saved. The spread of knowledge is completely necessary and it also allows some children to realise, truly, how lucky they are. It is fundamentally important to teach each and every child about their rights because, otherwise, they will not know the standards at which they should be living.