A.
Family
11. Every society should place a high priority on the needs and well-being
of the family and of all its members.
12. Since the family is the central unit responsible for the primary
socialization of children, governmental and social efforts to preserve the
integrity of the family, including the extended family, should be pursued.
The society has a responsibility to assist the family in providing care and
protection and in ensuring the physical and mental well-being of children.
Adequate arrangements including day-care should be provided.
13. Governments should establish policies that are conducive to the
bringing up of children in stable and settled family environments. Families
in need of assistance in the resolution of conditions of instability or
conflict should be provided with requisite services.
14. Where a stable and settled family environment is lacking and when
community efforts to assist parents in this regard have failed and the
extended family cannot fulfil this role, alternative placements, including
foster care and adoption, should be considered. Such placements should
replicate, to the extent possible, a stable and settled family environment,
while, at the same time, establishing a sense of permanency for children,
thus avoiding problems associated with "foster drift".
15. Special attention should be given to children of families affected by
problems brought about by rapid and uneven economic, social and cultural
change, in particular the children of indigenous, migrant and refugee
families. As such changes may disrupt the social capacity of the family to
secure the traditional rearing and nurturing of children, often as a result
of role and culture conflict, innovative and socially constructive
modalities for the socialization of children have to be designed.
16. Measures should be taken and programmes developed to provide families
with the opportunity to learn about parental roles and obligations as
regards child development and child care, promoting positive parent-child
relationships, sensitizing parents to the problems of children and young
persons and encouraging their involvement in family and community-based
activities.
17. Governments should take measures to promote family cohesion and harmony
and to discourage the separation of children from their parents, unless
circumstances affecting the welfare and future of the child leave no viable
alternative.
18. It is important to emphasize the socialization function of the family
and extended family; it is also equally important to recognize the future
role, responsibilities, participation and partnership of young persons in
society.
19. In ensuring the right of the
and other agencies should rely on
whenever traditional institutions
should also provide and allow for
child to proper socialization, Governments
existing social and legal agencies, but,
and customs are no longer effective, they
innovative measures.
B.
Education