Discriminated against Being Children: A Blind spot in the Human Rights Arena

Abstract

Not to be discriminated against and to be protected from discrimination belong to inalienable human rights, also for children. The criteria by which discrimination is measured (for instance, to be disadvantaged because of skin colour, sex or social background) are defined in international human rights treaties and in the same way found their way into the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The fact that humans can experience discrimination on grounds of their age has only been recognized very recently and here and there has led to corresponding requirements and legal policies. However, thus far, elderly people were almost exclusively envisaged. The following chapter intends to explore reasons and ways in which persons can also be discriminated against in specific ways for not yet being of age, that is, as children or ‘minors’, and how this is to be confronted.

We rang an ambulance, and we thought an ambulance was going to come, and then suddenly, because I sound like a child on the phone, so suddenly he said, how old is the person involved, and I said 14, and he said, well you have to get an adult to ring us up then…

(12-year-old, quoted in Young Equals, 2009: 9)

I walk into a shop, and security guards follow me around. I’m not allowed to have my hood up or hands in my pockets without someone coming up and asking me questions.

(16-year-old, quoted in Young Equals, 2009: 16)