These are your rights…
A new book from Amnesty brings child rights to life for young people aged 8-12. Knowing about their rights helps children look after themselves and each other. These Rights are Your Rights shows them how to become child activists. And it’s packed with fun… and powerful encouragement from actress and activist Angelina Jolie and Afghan journalist Zahra Joya.
There are about 2.3 billion children in the world. If they all joined hands, they could make a human chain that circles the world about 77 times (not totally accurate, but nearly). And each and every one of them has special rights because they are a child. This is the start to our new book These Rights
are Your Rights, written by Nicky Parker from Amnesty. In a chatty, accessible way, she gives serious information about child rights that ‘needs to be out in the open and talked about often, so that everyone knows what they are and how to look after them’. Fun facts, jokes, silly laws and comic illustrations by artist Sue Cheung pop up on the pages and help to spark this understanding.
Aimed at ages 8 to 12, Nicky spent time talking to children around the world about what they needed to see in the book. Early research came from the Open University who gathered children’s ideas and opinions into a report called Representing Children’s Rights. Youth activists gave their advice. When school pupils in Italy and Moldova gave frank feedback after reading the first draft, Nicky says: ‘I listened, took a deep breath and rewrote it. And I added more of the fun facts that had prompted the Moldovan children to link hands in the playground and see how far they could stretch.’
The foreword is by Zahra Joya, who had to dress as a boy to go to school under the Taliban (see page 31) and the preface is by Angelina
WINTER 2024 AMNESTY 29
This book tells you what your rights are, where they come from and why they matter. Think of it as your special
book of laws. Angelina Jolie has written the preface to Amnesty’s new book These Rights are Your Rights – an introduction for children, and a reminder for adults
© Amnesty International
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