Youth Rights Day is on November 20th and was created by young people in order to address problems in the world. The official website says it was “envisioned as a festival” and that the plan is to promote youth talent and the ideas that are important to the young generation.
Youth rights day emphasizes youth ideas and accomplishments as well as goals for the future. It also puts a focus on youth organisations and groups and their work, be it as a religious group, a group of activists for the environment, antiracism, LGBTQ+ rights, among others.
However, it is important to give a voice to young people and to listen and pay attention to what they have to say all year around, not just on this specific day. Youth Rights Day can be a great place to start and to raise awareness but it is important that many adults, including politicians, change their mindsets and start taking the young generation seriously since it is the future.
Additionally, it is crucial to give a voice not just to one specific group of young people, like white teenagers, influencers, or academic students from wealthy households, since these are the groups that are already thoroughly represented within the media even though they are not the majority of young people.
Youth Rights Day, and all youth activism, needs to be about all young people. This includes varying skin colors and heritages, varying gender identities and religions, varying family backgrounds and body types as well as varying abilities. This is not just referring to talents, but is also meant to specifically include mentally ill, neurodivergent, and disabled people, since all of them are also a part of this generation. And if change is made for the future, it should be inclusive to all of them.
Much like feminism should be intersectional, as many Instagram graphics like to point out, youth activism should be intersectional, meaning that it should include all young people. Things for this generation and the whole world can only improve in a lasting and healthy way if change is made in a way that does not discriminate. That is what I think about when I reflect on Youth Rights Day.
While the complete removal of discrimination from all the systems within global systems and societies is obviously impossible and will likely remain that way for a long time, we still have the power to change things. It is important to make an effort not to discriminate and to include everyone, both in real life and online, when it comes to sending out invitations for an event or even in regards to small things, such as wording.
It can genuinely make a difference to simply say “pregnant people” when talking about pregnancy instead of “women” or “expecting mothers.” Not only is not every cis-woman able and willing to have children, wordings like the latter also fail to include the many non-binary or transgender people who become pregnant and are faced with discrimination in the medical field. This is only one example of matters where wording is important and can make an impact on people’s mental health.
Many people do not take this seriously or refuse to believe it alltogether but transgender people do have a much higher risk of committing suicide, the dysphoria they experience can be awful for their mental healths, and respecting their correct pronouns and using inclusive language can make their lives better.
The Youth Rights Day committee speaks on their own behalf, being a diverse group of young people from several countries all over the world, not on the behalf of any group, and it is their mission to create a space for young people to create and to learn as well as to advocate for justice.
Surely it is no accident that the title sounds similar to Human Rights Day, which takes place three weeks later on December 10th and focuses on global solidarity. This goes hand-in-hand with the themes of Youth Rights Day, and young activists certainly also care about social and environmental justice, global support, and equality.
