Young citizen: rights and responsibilities
Everybody has rights and responsibilities and children are not exempt from these rights. The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) defines a child as “any human being below the age of eighteen years”. Children rights includes: right to survival, cared and raised well; to live with a family, protected, provided food, educated, health care etc.
These rights are given from birth and increase as they mature in life. Let us understand these rights age-wise.
From birth:
- A right to survival
- Cared and raised weak
- Protected, provided shelter and food
- Have a deposit account or current account
Three years
- 15 hours of childcare a week
- 30 hours funded childcare if their patient earn a certain amount
Four years
- A child can start full time education in a reception class at the age of four.
Five years
- A child must start her or his education at this age.
Ten years
- At the age of 10, a child can be found guilty of a crime under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. S/he can be convicted of a criminal offence but will be tried in a youth court unless the offence is serious, such as murder.
Eleven years
- Some banks allow children aged 11 or over to open a bank account, but not one with an overdraft.
Fourteen years
- Get a part time job as permitted under local authority for maximum 2hrs on a school day
- Work up to five hours on Saturdays
- Order soft drinks from the bar £1,000
- Wearing a seatbelt becomes their responsibility.
Fifteen years
- Addition to the above, they can work up to eight hours on Saturdays
- They can view, rent or buy a 15 rated film
- If convicted, they can be sentenced to up to two years in a young offenders institute.
Sixteen years S/he can:
- Give consent to medical, dental and surgical treatment
- Join the armed forces
- Get married or leave home (with parental consent)
- Leave school (provided you turn 16 by the end of the summer holidays.
- Access free full-time further education or take a year off for training or study
- Claim benefit and obtain a National Insurance number
- Apply for legal aid; drink a beer, wine, or cider with a meal in a pub or restaurant if accompanied by an adult;
- Obtain a provisional licence and ride a 50cc moped; work as a street trader and/or sell scrap metal; choose a doctor
- Work full time if they’ve left school
- Pay for prescription charges
- Order a passport
- Receive a youth rehabilitation order if convicted of a criminal offence
- Play the National Lottery
- Buy premium bonds
- Fly a glider.
Seventeen years
- You can become a blood donor leave their body for medical study
- Drive most kinds of vehicles (as long as accompanied by someone age 21+ if they only have a provisional licence);
- Drive alone if they pass their driving test
- Apply for a private pilot’s licence for a plane, helicopter, gyroplane, hot air balloon and airship
- Be interviewed by the police without an adult present and be given a reprimand or a warning; be sent to a remand centre or prison if charged with an offence and not granted bail.
Eighteen years is a ‘age of majority’ you can:
- Buy alcoholic drinks in a pub or a bar
- Pawn items in a pawn shop
- Have a tattoo
- Drive lorries weighing up to 7.5 tonnes, with a trailer attached
- Vote in local and general elections
- Stand for election as an MP, local councillor or Mayor
- Serve on a jury, be tried in a magistrates court and be jailed if convicted of a criminal offence
- See their original birth certificate if they were adopted
- Make a will
- Get married without parental consent
- View, rent or buy an 18 rated film; buy fireworks
- Place a bet in a betting shop/casino
- Buy cigarettes, rolling tobacco and cigarette papers
- Open a bank account.
Twenty-one years
- Apply to adopt a child
- Supervise a learner driver (with the rights driving licence)
- Apply for licences to fly commercial transport aeroplanes, helicopters, gyroplanes and airships; drive buses, road rollers and lorries over 7.5 tonnes with a trailer (with the right licences).