Removing Legal Discrimination Against Children Born Outside Marriage

The First Principle of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959) states that “The child shall enjoy all the rights set forth in this Declaration. All children, without any exception whatsoever, shall be entitled to these rights, without distinction or discrimination on account of … birth or other status, whether of himself or of his family”. Such a general expression of the desirability of equal rights for all children can be of little practical significance in the absence of positive laws to give substance to its spirit. The Declaration itself recognizes this in its Preamble, which calls upon “… national Governments to recognize these rights and strive for their observance by legislation and other measures”.