UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF YOUTH RIGHTS AND DUTIES
Presented in 1993, at the First International Congress of Adolescentology “Assisi ’93: Make Peace with Life” aimed to increase global awareness that young people represent the future of the world. Young people are not to be exploited as mere tools of power, profit, and death. Assisi ’93 addressed a common ethical code for youths, people, and nations. To defend the rights and duties of young people, the Italian Society of Adolescentology introduces to countries for its formal approval by the United Nations the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF YOUTH RIGHTS AND DUTIES. The statement of its points follows:
1) The right to a healthy regimen of nutrition sufficient to enable young people to think, study, work and communicate; the right to a healthy and comfortable home where youths can live in a dignified manner;
2) The right to freedom of religion, thought, speech, information, association, movement, and the duty to respect and defend such freedom;
3) The duty to respect religions, nationalities, races, ethnic groups and cultures different from one’s own and the right to defend one’ s religious, ethnic, and national appurtenance;
4) The right to an education and the duty to apply oneself in one’s studies to be able to develop one’s creative resources for individual and social well-being;
5) The right to work and the duty to commit oneself with honor and justice so to build the necessary resources to create and maintain the work;
6) The right to use every means of communication to promote and defend freedom, truth, justice, peace, life, and solidarity, to attain individual and social well-being.
7) The duty to maintain one’s own state of health by avoiding and obstructing, within one’s environment, any means or behavior which could damage one’s own or another person’s health;
8) The right to have medical aid and care when ill; the duty to aid, within one’s abilities, people of every age who are in a state of human and social disadvantage;
9) The right and duty to respect and defend one’s own life and that of every human being from conception until death;
10) The duty to aid and respect one’s own parents and the right to be aided and respected by them; the right to marry and procreate by constituting a family without cultural, familial, social and religious restrictions. The duty to provide responsibly, along with one’s spouse, for a family environment that is serene and full of love; for the education and development of affective, cognitive, moral and religious resources; for a home; for nutrition; and, for the care of children by building and receiving all the necessary support needed.*
11) The duty to promote, conserve and respect works of intelligence and human civilization: the duty to promote, respect, and defend the natural environment.
12) The duty to promote, conserve and defend liberty, justice, brotherhood and, universal peace among people and nations with cooperation, commitment, work, and moral and intellectual courage, in God’s spirit of eternal and universal Truth and Love;
**
Milan, Italy, Europe – December 25 1992,* December 18 1994, March 5 2012**
Approved by the Council of Delegated of the Italian Society of Adolescentology – January 24th 1993
Presented at the International Congress “ Assisi 92; make peace with life”- October 22,1993
Registered in Milan, Italy, Europe by the notary Carlo Corso on January 30th 1993 with Public Act n. 59567/4946.
Recognized by the Republic of Equador, by the President of Haiti J.B. Aristide, approved by the King of Spain Juan Carlos de Borbone,
recognized by Regione Lombardia (Italy), Romania and submitted for approval to other different countries.
Ethical fundament of the World Federation and Society of Adolescentology and the Ambrosiana University in Milan, Italy.