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Children
Previous and Existing Constitutions
What are the things in the constitution that are of special interest to children? Let's look first at the 1990 Constitution. It does mention children a few times:
- A child whose father is unknown but is found in the country is assumed to be a Nepal citizen (Article 9(2)).
- There can be special treatment for groups of people with special problems - like children (Article 11 (3)), because children have special needs. But the State is not compelled to do anything positive for children.
- The State is also told that it must
- protect children from exploitation(Article 26(8)
- gradually introduce free education (Article 26 (8)
- must have special protections for orphans (Art. 26 (9)
- But though the government is supposed to use these last three as a guideline, they do not give anyone any legal rights - it is not possible to go to court and complain that the government has ignored them.
- One special right for children is that they must not be employed in any factory or mine or dangerous work (Article 20(2)).
A child whose mother tongue is not Nepali might be interested in the provision that says that any community has the right to establish schools to give primary education to children in their mother tongue (Article 18(2)). But it does not say that the government must do anything to help.
All these things appear in the Interim Constitution as well, and there are some new things too (Article 22)
- A child is to have a right to a nationality and a name
- Every child has the right to be cared for
- Every child has the rights to basic health and social security.
- Every child shall have the right not to be exploited, and exploitation is supposed to be punished.
- Helpless, orphan, mentally retarded, displaced, vulnerable and street children and children who are victims of conflict have the right to special privileges from the State in order to secure their future.
These are all rights of the child - in other words a child who suffers and can argue that the state has not done what it ought would be able to bring a case to court. But this does not apply to punishing exploitation - because there must be a law passed against this.
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