Divide the class into small groups. The students work through these questions in their groups.
1. How would you define 'human rights'?
Something that protects you from being abused by others.
2. What rights do we have?
- Right to life
- Right to a fair trial
- Freedom from torture
- Right to protest
- Freedom from discrimination
- Right to privacy
3. Can you place these rights in order of importance?
4. Where do our rights come from?
Politicians, parents, lawyers, God.
5. How can we change our rights?
By lobbying a politician, by voting, by protesting, by educating people.
6. Who has changed peoples rights in the past? How have they done this?
Martin Luther King, Hitler, Emily Pankhurst, Malcolm X.
7. What would you do if someone violated your rights?
Protest, go to the Press, phone a lawyer.
What can the UK do to help children out of slavery?
The groups feedback their ideas to the rest of the class.
Focus the discussion on why human rights are necessary and how they should be upheld.
- Children's rights are most fully explained in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
- The Convention was adopted as an international human rights treaty on 20 November 1989.
- The Convention contains the Optional Protocol.
- The Protocol prohibits recruitment and deployment of any person younger than 18 years.
- It has been signed by 85 countries so far.
- It was created over a period of ten years.
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