Introduction

This assignment is going to be about human rights their origins and development regarding young people and children. One media source has to be chosen to allow me to explore a current issue related to the rights of children and I have chosen (Matilda 1996) and I will provide a debate or argument which assesses how the theme of my media source can be seen. I will look at the policies related to rights of children in the care and analyse the media source alongside some of the theories and I should think how these ideas play out in reality. My media source Matilda I will be looking at power and powerlessness and the notion of advocacy and at the end of the essay I will summarise and pull together all the arguments.

Rights and Participation

According to Ehall (2016) in Article 12 of the convention on the rights of the child it says every child has the right to participate in decision making which is relevant to their lives. The concept of children’s involvement of decision making is embodied within The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the child (UNCRC) (UNICEF 1989),which regards  children and young people as being citizens in their own right and having some level of autonomy over their lives (willow,2005,Lancaster and Broadbent,2003)

The movie is about a 6 year old girl who lives with her mean parents and her brother. They ignored her and never listened to what she said or asked for. Matilda taught herself how to read and used to go to the library every time her mother left her home alone while she went for bingo. Mrs Phelps from the library helped with an advanced reading list and took some books home to read every day.

Matilda was a very intelligent girl she developed telekinetic powers according to Benjamin (2013) telekinetic powers make a person move objects through the mind. Matilda got sent off to a school headed by a cruel principal Trunchbull. Matilda was put in a class where she met her wonderful teacher Miss Honey who was very different from her mean parents and cruel principal. On the first day of school her teacher Miss Honey realised how smart Matilda is then she went to ask Trunchbull if Matilda could go to a higher class but Trunchbull was mean and cruel to Miss honey.

Miss Honey invited Matilda at her house for tea after Trunchbull blames Matilda for putting a newt in glass she was drinking water from. Miss Honey tells Matilda about her past her mother died and how her mean aunt Trunchbull ruined her life and Miss Honey suspects that her aunt might have killed her father and stolen all her money. Matilda puts her telekinetic powers to practise to help Miss honey to get her stuff back from her aunt Trunchbull. Trunchbull visits miss Honey’s class and she was being abusive to the children till she was interrupted by a piece of chalk that was writing on it on, on the chalk board. It wrote Trunchbull needs to give back everything she stole from Miss Honey then she passed out and this was all Matilda’s telekinetic powers and Trunchbull though it was Miss Honey’s father who passed away.