Neglected Rights

So far, children have been the big losers of the COVID-19 pandemic. The closure of childcare facilities and schools and the cancelling of extracurricular activities robbed them of vital social networks, led to marked learning deficits, jeopardised their mental health, and exacerbated existing inequalities. The pandemic made blatantly clear something that was already evident beforehand: young people in Germany have no lobby, and little in the way of rights or agency.

Drawing on recent empirical studies, Christoph Schickhardt offers a scathing assessment of our misguided response to the pandemic. He cites key concepts from the field of paediatric ethics and discusses them with reference to the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child and the rights enshrined in the German constitution. It is symptomatic of the situation surrounding the rights of young people that it was only a verdict issued by the federal constitutional court on school closures that led to a fundamental recognition of the right to formal education in Germany.

Schickhardt’s ethical considerations on the rights of children and his suggestions for reform make a valuable contribution to a long-overdue debate about the role of children and young people in the society of the future.