Situation of children's rights in Isfahan city

Abstract

• BACKGROUND: Taking care of children makes them happy, lively and healthy, and it makes the society healthy. Children's rights have been discussed for years and the United Nation General Assembly has two conventions to prevent children abuse, the Minimum Age Convention of 1973 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 1989. However, in spit of these international agreements, the statistics show that the cases of children abuse increased from 749 cases in 1960 to one million cases in 1995 in the Western countries. Islamic republic of IRAN agreed this international agreement in 1993. This study investigated the nature, structure and process of children's right in the city of Isfahan.
• METHODS: The study is qualitative, using Content Analysis . The purpose of the study is to discover children's right nature, and to describe the existing condition. Sampling method was purposive (or judgmental) and continued until data collection was completed. Sample consisted of 43 children, parents and teachers or trainers. Data were collected by observing schools and other public communities and also by interviews which were recorded, transcribed, reviewed and coded in three steps using qualitative research methods, Thematic Analysis, to extract the main conception.
• RESULTS: The findings of observations and interviews classified in 260 codes and then joined together again to extract the main concepts and categories related to children's rights. This step lead to 12 categories and in the third step, four major categories including psychological and personality, physical, economic and cultural factors were extracted.
• CONCLUSIONS: Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that parents, teachers and other significant figures in the children's life should receive education on the children's rights and needs in various fields to become capable of developing policies and plans in this regard.
• KEY WORDS: Children, human rights, personality, culture.