Upbringing and Protection (rights) of Children in the Light of Quran and Sunnah

Abstract

Human rights are those basic standards which are needed by the people to live in dignity. In addition to the rights which are considered for all the people, there are special rights which are reserved only for the children. Children need special rights based on their unique needs; unlike adults they need additional protection. The rights of the children have also been set out in the United Nations convention on the rights of the child as an international document, in this convention the child has been defined as any person under the age of 18. In our religion Islam, the minors below the age of maturity or puberty are considered as children. The sign of puberty for a male is nocturnal pollution and for a female is menstruation. However, for ease in legal issues, most of the jurists have fixed the age of puberty as fifteen years for both male and female. Islam also considers the family as a basic social unit. Within a family parent-child relationship is of dire importance along with the husband-wife relationship and similar other social relationships. It is well understood academically that in order to maintain such relationships, both parties must have some clear-cut rights as well as obligations. Such relationships are mainly reciprocal. The obligations of one party are the rights of the other party and vice versa, the rights of one party are the obligations of the other party. A child can never be treated like an adult in many ways. Therefore, it is different to deal with the matter of children as compared to those of adults. In the field of rights, the children are defenseless, vulnerable and unaware about their rights, so children cannot defend or fight for their rights unlike adults who always strive to defend their rights. Hence for children there needs to be a sincere person either a parent or a guardian to identify the rights of children and implement it for them. The objective of this thesis is to introduce to the scholars that dealing with children is though intricate but with a careful and scholarly approach, the rights of the children can be protected. The rights of the children are mostly manipulated against them either by their guardians or by those who have direct access or influence over them. The damage inflicted by those who have no direct access with the children can be identified and avoided but the internal damage inflicted by the guardians or others having direct access cannot be easily ascertained, therefore, the severity of such an abuse is large and it leaves a lifelong physical and emotional scars on children. The need to protect the children against such an abuse is as important as it was ever. The necessity of academic work fills out the void in the human rights arena towards the defense of vulnerable children and provides a good platform to combat violation of their rights.