Youth rights

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The youth rights movement (also known as youth liberation) seeks to grant the rights to young people that are traditionally reserved for adults, due to having reached a specific age or sufficient maturity.^{[citation needed]} This is closely akin to the notion of evolving capacities within the children's rights movement, but the youth rights movement differs from the children's rights movement in that the latter places emphasis on the welfare and protection of children through the actions and decisions of adults, while the youth rights movement seeks to grant youth the liberty to make their own decisions autonomously in the ways adults are permitted to, or to lower the legal minimum ages at which such rights are acquired, such as the age of majority and the voting age.^{[citation needed]}

Codified youth rights constitute one aspect of how youth are treated in society. Other aspects include social questions of how adults see and treat youth, and how open a society is to youth participation.^[1]

Issues

Of primary importance to advocates of youth rights are historical perceptions of young people, which they say are

First emerging as a distinct movement in the 1930s, youth rights have long been concerned with

These views are often supported by people with experience of the belief in absolutely gradual mental development being abused as an argument for "necessity" of arbitrary distinctions such as age of majority which they perceive as oppressive (either currently oppressing or having formerly oppressed them, depending on age and jurisdiction), and instead cite types of connectionism that allows for critical phenomena that encompasses the entire brain. These thinkers tend to stress that different individuals reach the critical threshold at somewhat different ages with no more than one in 365 (one in 366 in the case of leap years) chance of coinciding with a birthday, and that the relevant difference that it is acceptable to base different treatment on is only between individuals and not between jurisdictions. Generally, the importance of judging each individual by observable relevant behaviors and not by birth date is stressed by advocates of these views.^[7]

Youth rights

• Voting age
• Age of candidacy
• Age of consent
• Age of majority
• Age of criminal responsibility
• Drinking age
• Driving age
• Legal working age
• Right to work
• Student rights
• Youth suffrage

After youth reach these limits they are free to

Movement

The "youth rights movement", also described as "youth liberation", is a nascent

International Youth Rights (IYR) is a student-run youth rights organization in China, with regional chapters across the country and abroad. Its aim is to make voices of youth be heard across the world and give opportunities for youths to carry out their own creative solutions to world issues in real life.

Organizations in Europe

The European Youth Forum (YFJ, from Youth Forum Jeunesse) is the platform of the National Youth Council and International Non-Governmental Youth Organisations in Europe. It strives for youth rights in International Institutions such as the European Union, the Council of Europe and the United Nations. The European Youth Forum works in the fields of youth policy and youth work development. It focuses its work on European youth policy matters, whilst through engagement on the global level it is enhancing the capacities of its members and promoting global interdependence. In its daily work the European Youth Forum represents the views and opinions of youth organisations in all relevant policy areas and promotes the cross-sectoral nature of youth policy towards a variety of institutional actors. The principles of equality and sustainable development are mainstreamed in the work of the European Youth Forum. Other International youth rights organizations include Article 12 in Scotland and K.R.A.T.Z.A. in Germany.

In Malta, the voting age has been lowered to 16 in 2018 to vote in national and European Parliament elections.^[10]

The European Youth Portal is the starting place for the European Union's youth policy, with Erasmus+ as one of its key initiatives.

Organizations in the United States

The

Young India Foundation (YIF) is a youth-led youth rights organization in India, based in Gurgaon with regional chapters across India. Its aim is to make voices of youth be heard across India and seek representation for the 60% of India's demographic that is below the age of 25.^[11] YIF is also the organization behind the age of candidacy campaign to bring down the age when a Member of Legislative Assembly or Member of Parliament can contest.^[12]

Prominent individuals

Youth rights, as a philosophy and as a movement, has been informed and is led by a variety of individuals and institutions across the United States and around the world. In the 1960s and 70s

References