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Children's Rights
  1. Signatures
    10,282 out of 25,000
    Petitioning
    1. The President of the United States (+ 2 others)
      Petitioning
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      • The President of the United States
      • The U.S. Senate
      • The U.S. House of Representatives
  2. Created By
    Christine Clarke
    Mount Arlington, NJ
About this Petition Petition Letter

Children born in the United States are entitled to protection under the same laws that safeguard all other citizens, as per the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Their citizenship does not come at the age of 18, but rather at birth.  So why, when they are in their homes, and in some states while in school as well, do we deny them this basic American citizenship right to be safe from the fear of physical harm (otherwise known as assault) so long as a parent, guardian or teacher is the person committing the offense against them?   This has to stop.   Children are people.  They deserve to live in freedom from the fear of personal injury too.

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U.S. Children's Constitutional Rights

Dear Representative

U.S. children are granted basic human rights as citizens of this country at birth.   Under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, these rights include the right to be protected under the same laws that protect everyone inside of our borders.

Children are people, and U.S. citizens, from birth.  They deserve "equal protection" from personal injury just as much as American adults do.  

That being the case, why is it that we drop these citizens from our protection as long as children are assaulted in their homes, at school or at the hands of a guardian or caretaker?  

Why do we allow state child protection law language to exist 'on the books' that permits child assault, and with only vague, sometimes unenforceable language restricting its use?  

Per Child Maltreatment 2007, the U.S. annual report on statistical data about child abuse in our country:

- 3 kids die every day from abuse and neglect.
- 78 percent of these kids are under 3 years old.
- 44 percent of these kids (nearly half) are under 1 year old.

Additionally:

- An estimated 794,000 children were found to be victims of abuse or neglect in fiscal year 2007, representing a rate of 10.6 per 1,000 children in the population.
- An estimated 3.2 million referrals were made to CPS agencies in 2007, involving the alleged maltreatment of approximately 5.8 million children.

This is unacceptable.  The social repercussions of allowing this to continue spread far beyond just the repeat of violent patterns in their own households later when these abused kids become parents themselves.    The body heals after maltreatment, but sometimes the mind doesn't.

Please help to rewrite these laws so that they stop stripping children of their U.S. birthright to live in freedom from fear of bodily harm.    Children are citizens at birth, and deserve 'equal protection' from birth.    Assault is assault, no matter how old the victim is.

Start with The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA, 42 U.S.C.A. §5106g), which serves as a set of minimum requirements for state child protection laws.   Fix CAPTA.   Include all forms of 'common sense' abuse in the list of prohibited forms of maltreatment.   Spread the safety outward to all of the other states, which must abide by CAPTA's terms.

Please help us do this so that we may save more abused and at risk children from harm's way, and so that we may do more to encourage healthy, safe familial relationships.

Respectfully,

[Your name]

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