Pre-school children need to be educated on the rights guaranteed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to a study by the University of Mons, published on Friday in collaboration with the UN Children's Fund office in Belgium.
Such teaching helps them to promote their rights and those of their peers on a daily basis. "Education is a child's right, but so is education in children's rights,"says Christèle Devos, Executive Director of UNICEF Belgium.
Between November 2022 and January 2023, 51 children aged between 2.5 and 6 were questioned about their knowledge of their rights. According to the survey results, 18% of the children were able to explain the notion of "right" and its implications.
Nearly 82% of them were also able to answer closed questions relating to various rights, such as access to healthcare, a decent standard of living, leisure activities and protection from abuse.
Rights concerning non-discrimination on the basis of gender or disability were less well understood. For example, only 62.5% of boys aged 4 to 6 believed they had the right "to play with dolls and cars," compared with 83% of girls.
What's more, 50% of the children believed they had the right to prevent a playmate from playing because of his or her disability.
"Without appropriate education, the youngest children are likely to cling to the phrase 'you don't have the right,' which punctuates their actions whenever they are not allowed to do something," the study points out.
In order to improve understanding of the notion of the right to non-discrimination, and to avoid associating the term 'rights' with the transgression of prohibitions, UNICEF is encouraging reflection on the place of rights in school curricula.
