Vocabulary

Decent is an acceptable or satisfactory standard.
Dignity means being respected for who you are and what you believe in.
Esteem is respect and admiration, typically for a person.
Exclusion is to deny someone access to or bar someone from a place, group or privilege. 
Full is not lacking or omitting anything; complete.
Inclusion is the action or state of including or of being included within a group or structure. 
Protection is the action of protecting someone or something, or the state of being protected. 
Rights are entitlements that nobody can take away.
Special Needs are persons with mental, emotional, or physical problems that require special settings or education.

Purpose - 
Exclusion of Others

Picture
In sub-unit 2.1 children identified that every child has a right to participate fully in life, and this includes children with special needs. However, this is not always the case. Often, children with special needs are excluded from participating, even when they are capable of doing so. In this sub-unit, children analyze the social reasons children with special needs are excluded.
Child Asks: Why are children with special needs sometimes not included?
Children's Rights Education enables the child to analyze issues relating to the exclusion of children with special needs in the community.
Child Answers: Sometimes children with special needs are not included. 

Classroom Learning Activities

1. Barriers to Children with Disabilities
  • Before Birth
  1. Poor maternal health and nutrition
  2. Poverty
  3. Inadequate prenatal care
  4. Prenatal screening and termination of pregnancy
  • At Birth
  1. Euthanization
  2. Denial of appropriate medical treatment
  3. Risk of rejection by parents
  4. Institutional placement
  • After Birth
  1. Institutional placement
  2. Isolation in the home and isolation from the community
  3. Denial of the right to education and many other human rights
  4. Risk of continual medical treatments, some painful and necessary
  5. Denial of the right to participate in decisions that effect their lives

Relevant Convention Articles

Article 1
For the purposes of the present Convention, a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier.
Article 2
1. States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child's or his or her parent's or legal guardian's race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.
2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians, or family members.
Article 23
1. States Parties recognize that a mentally or physically disabled child should enjoy a full and decent life, in conditions which ensure dignity, promote self-reliance and facilitate the child's active participation in the community.
2. States Parties recognize the right of the disabled child to special care and shall encourage and ensure the extension, subject to available resources, to the eligible child and those responsible for his or her care, of assistance for which application is made and which is appropriate to the child's condition and to the circumstances of the parents or others caring for the child.
3. Recognizing the special needs of a disabled child, assistance extended in accordance with paragraph 2 of the present article shall be provided free of charge, whenever possible, taking into account the financial resources of the parents or others caring for the child, and shall be designed to ensure that the disabled child has effective access to and receives education, training, health care services, rehabilitation services, preparation for employment and recreation opportunities in a manner conducive to the child's achieving the fullest possible social integration and individual development, including his or her cultural and spiritual development
4. States Parties shall promote, in the spirit of international cooperation, the exchange of appropriate information in the field of preventive health care and of medical, psychological and functional treatment of disabled children, including dissemination of and access to information concerning methods of rehabilitation, education and vocational services, with the aim of enabling States Parties to improve their capabilities and skills and to widen their experience in these areas. In this regard, particular account shall be taken of the needs of developing countries.

Online Resources and References