The position of children's rights in South Africa and the position of children under the Bill of Rights in the RSA Constitution is considered. The following two chapters deal with concrete examples of human rights that are rarely granted to children at home in practice.
ASPIRATIONAL VALUES AND ASPIRATIONAL RIGHTS APPLIED TO CHILDREN
The rights contained in the Bill of Rights apply to all citizens of the country without distinction. The aspirational values are those that are necessary (not merely desirable, mind you) for one to be a person, or to be a person of value. If the above rights and freedoms are denied to persons, they will cease to be persons in the normal.
HORIZONTAL APPLICABILITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIS-A.-VIS CHILDREN
However, parents should not abuse a child's youth as a useful cover for their own vested interests or personal advantage, thereby denying the child their rights. In the RSA, the common law gives parents broad powers and discretion in deciding how to fulfill their child-rearing duties, but the constitution provides that the values and rights enshrined in the constitution can be applied horizontally.
HORIZONTAL APPLICABILITY OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS FOR PARENTS?
Rather, it is what could be or should be when children's rights are considered through the portal of the RSA Bill of Rights in the Constitution, particularly as they apply to parents and their children in the home. With this in mind, a consideration of the parental role and the parent-child relationship will be dealt with in the next chapter.
INTRODUCTION
THE TRADITIONAL PARENT - A CRITIQUE
The ancient pater potestas concept even went so far as to give the father the right to the life of his child and he could kill his offspring if he wanted to. The child was effectively an object, a possession, to be treated according to the father's whim. Thus each parent's version of what God and the Christian community want becomes a sacred duty and is often acted upon uncritically. The child is effectively on a conveyor belt that is spun out as a standardized Christian product, thereby diminishing his or her unique personality.
PATERNALISM AND CHILDREN: A CHANGING PARADIGM
The family must be the child's first and most powerful experience of democracy, based on trust and faith, just as it happens in the relationship adult citizens have with an enlightened state, which is based on a human rights regime. The assumption that children's satisfactions and desires are of less importance than the parents' is simply not true for enlightened parents. The parent-child relationship is one of trust for such parents.
THE CHANGING CONCEPTIONS AND STATUS OF CHILDREN: THE CHILDREN'S LIBERATION MOVEMENT
However, the process of children's rights, and in particular the liberating stance of children, has challenged parents and conservative groups in society. Other aspects of the child liberation movement were simply based on the application of human rights values, and articles in charters, to the lives of children.
THE CHANGING CONCEPTIONS AND STATUS OF CHILDREN
Alaimo, (2002, p xiv) summed up the position succinctly when he said 'children matter and matter in their own right'. Archard (1993, p. 300) states that children are self-owners. If children are to be allowed to have rights from their parents, they must be given the optimal degree of personal choice to create their own version of themselves and their lives, as far as this is possible.
THE CHANGING CONCEPTIONS AND STATUS OF CHILDREN: THE EMERGENCE OF CHILDREN'S RIGHTS VIA CHARTERS AND LEGAL
In England (Freeman, 1996, p. 170), the court recognized that children have their own minds, wills, views and emotions (ie they are persons). The outcomes of such cases establish in the public domain the principle that children have personality rights that are enforceable and have had a decisive public effect on the child.
PARENTS AND THE REALISATION OF CHILDREN'S RIGHTS
The subsequent chapter interrogates the fundamental values underlying claims for children's rights as they apply specifically to children. What does it mean for children to receive their rightful dignity at home?
THE CONCEPT PERSON AND RESPECT FOR PERSON
Parents should show real respect and allow the child to have his/her dignity. The child must be recognized as a person and recognized in his/her own right.
DIGNITY AS THE FOUNDATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS VALUE
But moral dignity is not simply a matter of reputation; it is different from status, honor or reputation. In this regard, the subtle distinctions regarding relatively helpless children should be emphasized, that treating a child with dignity is related to, but distinct from, treating a child as having dignity, and again in allowing a child to have dignity his.
EQUALITY AND THE CHILD
A child does not have an equal right to drive a vehicle on public roads, but does have the right to expect to be transported to school every day at home. This distinction results in unequal treatment on a fair and justifiable basis. The distinction is fair and appropriate and therefore not discriminatory. For any restriction on the child's freedom to be his or her own person to be valid and acceptable, the burden of proof would fall on those seeking to restrict that child's freedom (i.e. the parents).
JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN
The first example of how children's rights could be dealt with at home falls under the heading 'freedom from'. The state has banned the use of corporal punishment for all citizens, but parents have the right by law to manage absconders in the home.
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT AND THE RSA CONSTITUTION
There are no checks and balances in the administration of corporal punishment by parents in the privacy of their homes. The child does not have the knowledge or standing to oppose a punishment in the home that a parent administers.
THE DIMINUTION OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT
Corporal punishment means a complete lack of respect for human beings; therefore it cannot depend on the age of the person. In South Africa, voices have been heard suggesting that corporal punishment of children in their homes should be banned16.
ENTRENCHED CORPORAL PUNISHMENT POSITIONS IN SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY
IMPETUS FOR CHANGE IN CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN THE HOME
It is not clear why, in the face of such evidence, parental corporal punishment continues, unless it satisfies some deep-seated sadistic need in the parents themselves. There are principled and related reasons why corporal punishment should be banned at home in South Africa, which will be discussed below.
CONSTITUTIONAL HORIZONTAL EFFECT, EQUALITY OF TREATMENT, AND CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN THE HOME
By prohibiting corporal punishment in the private sphere, the state would protect and safeguard the child from the excessive power and influence of a parent. The state should apply the horizontal effect and ban corporal punishment by parents in the home, as is happening in more and more countries. In terms of the arguments presented, this would be the 'right' thing to do.
LEGAL PROCESS PROBLEMS IN CURBING CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN THE HOME
After all, not all children are beaten; it is often more a function of the parent than a characteristic of the child that 'requires' a child to receive corporal punishment. Much can be learned by considering the experiences of countries that have banned corporal punishment of parents.
CONCLUSION
Human dignity is reflected, among other things, in the ability of man as such to freely shape his personality as he wishes, to express his ambitions and to choose ways to realize them, to make free choices and to not to be enslaved. to arbitrary coercion, to receive fair treatment by every authority and by every other individual, to enjoy equality among human beings, to receive due attention from the society in which he lives and to accept or reject ideas such as he wants.' When a child is mature enough to distinguish his religious beliefs from those of his parents, his beliefs should be consulted” (Gutman in Montgomery, 1988, p. 324).
INTRODUCTION
FREEDOM OF RELIGION: VALUE AND RIGHT FOR A CHILD
No intrusion into the private realm of a person's innermost beliefs can be justified under any set of circumstances, let alone based on the age of the child. All these must be allowed in the spirit of the 'best interests of the child' to be his or her own person (in Kantian terms an end in itself and a person who is dignity and respect).
FAITH, BELIEF AND WORSHIP IN A FAMILY: CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION
There are a number of reasons why a child may want to change his or her religion. A child may feel that he or she does not 'fit in' with his or her church.
RESISTANCE TO A CHILD'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE A RELIGION
However, these parents may have criminal records, be alcoholics, have affairs, squander the family's financial resources on gambling and drugs. make critical decisions on his or her behalf, without necessarily consulting their child, should be openly debated. Enlightened parenting is often best when parents influence by example, rather than trying to control a child's development.
WHY CHILDREN SHOULD BE PERMITTED TO CHOOSE THEIR OWN RELIGION?
Socialization is largely an informal process in the family, where through relationships the child is taught to adapt to living in his society, which results in the child. It develops from a young age, based on life experiences and the choices the child makes.
THE ENLIGHTENED PARENT AND THE CHILD'S RIGHT TO A .CHOICE OF RELIGION
There is no doubt that persons in a family who subscribe to different beliefs and belong to different religious communities is inappropriate. The tension created by different beliefs within groups, such as in a family, is an inevitable consequence of the pluralism in religious beliefs that arises in a postmodern society. The global world has tended to challenge exclusive and monoreligious communities.
CONCLUSION
It is asserted that children's rights cannot be realistically achieved in many cases through legal channels. To bring about this change, the concept of an 'enlightened parent' is articulated.
QUO VADIS CHILDREN 'S RIGHTS?
Rights, instead of being only legally enforced laws, should be a matter of education and advocacy for children's rights to achieve the realization of moral rights and dignity for children. The fulfillment of children's rights has been expressed as an enlightened parental relationship with their child.
THE CONCEPT OF AN ENLIGHTENED PARENT
The central principles of this treaty have been that children are worthy of respect and dignity and that in the home parents are the ones who either promote or diminish the realization of their children's rights.
ROGERIAN VISION OF THE PERSON
Although the child must receive the necessary support, appropriate to his or her age and the circumstances in each case, the. In fact, children need only have one duty, and that is to be taught to respect the rights of others.
TOLERATION
THE ETHIC OF CARE AND CONCERN
Far from weakening the bonds between communities, it establishes the notion of the common good in a democratic society.' (Klug, 2000, p. 197). A useful way of addressing children's rights is through Maslow's construct of the hierarchy of needs.
CHILDREN'S RIGHTS ARE A PRODUCT OF PARENTS' PERCEPTION OF THEIR CHILDREN
In this study, the failure to realize children's rights has been highlighted as their relative lack of rights as children in the home. Advocacy with state power structures to place children's rights concerns at the heart of human rights efforts in the country.
BOOKS AN D JOURNALS
2003. The Fate of the Child: Legal Decisions for Children in New South Africa. Lansdowne, Utah Law. Free exercise of religion: The conflict between the rights of the parent and the right of the minor child to determine the child's religion.
CONVENTIONS, BILLS AND ACTS
CASES
