The Universal Declaration of Human Rights turns 75 next year. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has put out a Call for input: Views of youth-led and youth-focused organizations and institutions on the future of human rights for the development of the Human Rights 75 Youth Declaration https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2023/call-input-views-youth-led-and-youth-focused-organizations-and-institutions
Our team has done a lot of work on Article 19 of the UDHR.
Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers
As part of our recent Early Childhood Voices conference we asked children across the world to draw themselves talking to someone. We listened to 200 hundred children (2-12 years) from 20+ countries (Armenia, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Croatia, Fiji, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong SAR China, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Latvia, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam). Their drawings are displayed in four Children Draw Talking Global Online Galleries. The majority of children (79%) felt happy about talking, 8% felt unsure, 1.5% felt sad, and some did not respond or said another feeling. The children drew themselves talking to a friend (22%), their mother (16%), father (14%), animals (9%), siblings (9%), other family members (5%), and teacher/speech pathologist (4%) (some unable to be classified). Parents of 28.5% of children had concerns about how their child talked or made speech sounds (similar to the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, McLeod & Harrison, 2009).
The Early Childhood Interdisciplinary Research Sturt Scheme at Charles Sturt University have put together a submission to the United Nations where children have provided “recommendations to decision and policymakers, including … the United Nations, and others, to advance human rights in the future”.
A few years ago we documented communication as a human right in the special issue of IJSLP (free online). The lead article summarizing the special issue is here:
McLeod, S. (2018). Communication rights: Fundamental human rights for all. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20(1), 3–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2018.1428687
We took this special issue to the United Nations in 2019.
Recently, we have published a special issue demonstrating how communication is central to the Sustainable Development Goals (free online). The lead article summarizing the special issue is here:
McLeod, S., & Marshall, J. (2023). Communication for all and the Sustainable Development Goals. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 25(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2022.2160494
I have been encouraging my colleagues fro across the world to engage with the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Also, see Dr Suzanne Hopf reading Article 19 from Fiji - https://youtu.be/XlfonR_aQaQ. Her video is included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Multilingual Video Collection https://www.un.org/en/udhr-video/curated.shtml.
References
Mahony, L., McLeod, S., Salamon, A., Dwyer, J. (Eds.) (in press). Early childhood voices: Children, families, professionals. Springer Nature.
McCormack, J., McLeod, S., Harrison, L. J., & Holliday, E. L. (2022). Drawing talking: Listening to children with speech sound disorders. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 53(3), 713-731. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_LSHSS-21-00140
McLeod, S. (2018). Communication rights: Fundamental human rights for all. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20(1), 3–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2018.1428687
McLeod, S., & Marshall, J. (2023). Communication for all and the Sustainable Development Goals. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 25(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2022.2160494
