Discourses/5. Mexico: Children’s Rights in Mexico Analysis of a Legal and Policy Framework

Abstract

Human Rights have been recognized for a long time now and, some of its first antecedents can be found on the Magna Carta in 1205, where the rights of specific sectors of society were recognized. Other pieces of Legislation as the Habeas Corpus in 1679 or later the Bill of Rights in 1776 were building further towards the recognition of rights of people as guarantees of the permanence of social groups through norms and institutions that promote and secure them. This article identifies and analyses how the rights of one of the most vulnerable groups in society have evolved, developed and are currently exercised in México, the rights of children. It contributes to the discussion by identifying and analyzing the development of law and the implementation of their rights through recently created institutions, secondary laws, and implemented policies. The analysis has the purpose of recollecting the available evidence on the legal and institutional framework in México for children and evaluate if children can exercise their self-determination specifically in an educational context, under the provision of state schools in México. The case of México can result quite unique in the sense that its provision caters for “indigenous” or native children who are traditionally perceived as an oppressed and vulnerable sector of society.