Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player.

Get Adobe Flash player

Respect children rights

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the first legally binding international instrument for the rights that all children should merit. It sets fundamental principles for the prosperity of children during the various stages of their development and is constituted by 54 articles. The Convention was formed with the initiative of the Polish government and UNICEF; it was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly on 20 November 1989 and came into force in 1990.

It has been ratified by almost all countries of the world up to now. In Greece, it was ratified in 1992 (Official Journal of the Hellenic Republic 192/2.12.92).

The Convention on the Rights of the Child includes three major categories of rights:

  • Protection (from every form of abuse, exploitation, discrimination, racism, etc.);
  • Benefits (right to education, health, provision, entertainment, etc.);
  • Participation (right to expressing their views, information, leisure, etc.)

However, Children Rights keep on being violated, resulting to the embarrassing pictures that often come to the light of publicity:

Children who suffer from hunger, children without shelter and protection, abused children, children deprived of elementary education, children-victims of exploitation, children that live in inhumane conditions and fear.

These are not just pictures from developing countries. They rather constitute a part of the everyday life of even the most developed societies, included the Greek one.

The “Foundation for the Child and the Family” in collaboration with UNESCO, UNICEF, and Greek as well as international governmental and non governmental organisations supports in full strength every initiative aiming at the respect and implementation of children rights.

In the frame of its action the “Foundation for the Child and the Family” has organised, supports and participates in meetings, conferences and events aiming at the sensitisation and awareness of the common opinion on children rights, such as the "International Convention for the Rights of the Child and the Role of the European Union", the Meeting of experts in Sorbonne with the topic: “The Child and the Family in the society of the 21st Century, in Europe”, etc. It has also published the book entitled "THE TEN BASIC PRINCIPLES of the United Nations' Declaration of Children's Rights", illustrated by the artist Manolis Charos.