World Children’s Day

The theme of this year’s World Children’s Day on November 20 is called “A Better Future for Every Child”. First established in 1954 as Universal Children’s Day it is a day that focuses on promote international awareness for children’s rights and improving children’s welfare. Today, UNICEF is inviting all of us to meet the group of UNICEF Youth Advocates and other young champions who as they say, “are leading with new and creative solutions to the world’s big problems.”

The rights of children are especially important to pay attention to from a humanist point of view for several reasons. Children have less awareness of their rights, they might often not understand when their rights are violated and how to defend themselves against such violation. Also, they usually depend strongly on their legal guardian(s), the very same people who statistically speaking are most responsible for the violation of their rights. It is and will remain to be a very important task to watch children’s rights and especially the violation of such rights closely. In the public perception children often fly under the radar by default: they are somebody else’s responsibility and it seems uncalled for to interfere with other families’ parenting. Today on World Children’s Day we can all remind ourselves that children all over the world need grown-up supervision and protection, especially if they don’t get it from their own families or legal guardians. We can all pay attention and watch the world around us a bit better, with a bit more caution.