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Human Rights
Human Rights
The development of human rights has a long history in modern democratic societies. In 1690, John Locke argued in Two Treatises of Government that men formed a contract with their government to protect their ‘lives, liberties, and estates’. Establishing a government required basic rights such as free speech, freedom from arbitrary arrest, fair trials, and a presence in public spaces. The Americans added ‘happiness’ in their Declaration of Independence in 1776. More recently, the South African constitution of 1996 cites a right to basic economic needs. We now define human rights according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights issued in 1948. Most democracies accept that they are fundamental to their legal systems.
Until the late nineteenth century, rights were seen as the prerogative of propertied men. Protected by government, they, in turn, were expected to protect weaker members of society – in particular, women and children. Men without property were disenfranchised because their investment in society was considered too small. They won the vote by instalments during the nineteenth century as their labour came to be seen as property.
Men’s Rights
Not yet sorted out but could include issues such as the franchise, employment issues, for example the eight hour day and workers compensation, fathers’ rights.
Women’s Rights
In Tasmania, the campaign for the female franchise was waged in conjunction with that of unpropertied men. Tasmanian women won the vote by the Constitution Act of 1903. During the late nineteenth century, women still suffered from civil rights disabilities during this period but there were some improvements. (Contagious Diseases – repealed in 1903 Public Health Act; Married Women’s Property Act – 1882; Women and Children’s Employment Act – 1884; Offences Against the Person – 1863, 1885)
Children’s Rights
Children’s rights have always depended on how childhood was perceived. Under the influence of nineteenth century romanticism, middle-class childhoods became a separate category to adulthood, a time of nurture, preparation for life, innocence, and absence of adult responsibilities, especially employment. In the late nineteenth century, Tasmanian children’s rights began to underpin these characteristics of childhood. The extension of the vote to the working class meant that the state took a greater interest in how their children, as potential voters, were raised. Here control, as much as nurture, played an important part. This sometimes impinged on children’s right to protection from the state.
Andrew Inglis Clark Home
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