Children’s Bill Of Rights
Every Child Deserves to Be Safe, Seen, Heard, Valued, and Protected
At the Anthony DeJuan Boatwright Foundation, we believe every child deserves the opportunity to grow, learn, play, dream, and thrive in an environment that protects their safety, dignity, and well-being. Our Children’s Bill of Rights reflects the principles we believe every child deserves.
1. The Right to Be a Child
Every child deserves the freedom to experience childhood fully. Children should be able to laugh, play, explore, learn, make age-appropriate mistakes, and grow without fear of abuse, humiliation, retaliation, or unreasonable punishment. Childhood happens only once. It should be protected.
2. The Right to Safety
Every child deserves protection from abuse, neglect, exploitation, violence, unsafe environments, and preventable harm. Any adult entrusted with a child’s care has a responsibility to place that child’s safety first.
3. The Right to Safe and Responsible Childcare
Every child deserves to be cared for in a safe, properly supervised, and accountable environment.
Parents and guardians deserve truthful information about the people and facilities caring for their children, especially information that could affect a family’s decision about safety. No parent should have to discover critical information only after a child has been harmed.
4. The Right to Be Heard
Every child deserves to have their concerns taken seriously. When a child says they are afraid, uncomfortable, hurt, mistreated, or unsafe, responsible adults should listen and respond appropriately.
A child’s age should never make their voice unimportant.
5. The Right to Dignity and Respect
Every child is a human being deserving of dignity, compassion, respect, and proper care. A child’s feelings, safety, injuries, fears, and experiences should never be dismissed simply because they are young.
6. The Right to Advocacy
Every child deserves responsible adults who will speak up for them when they cannot speak up for themselves. Parents, guardians, caregivers, educators, healthcare professionals, lawmakers, childcare providers, and communities all have a role in protecting children and demanding accountability when children are failed.
7. The Right to Quality Healthcare and Education
Every child deserves access to quality healthcare, education, developmental support, and opportunities that help them reach their fullest potential. Every child should have a meaningful opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed.
8. The Right to Safe Products and Services
Every child deserves products, services, facilities, and programs that place safety and well-being first.
Businesses and organizations serving children should be held to appropriate standards of transparency, responsibility, and accountability. When preventable failures cause harm, families deserve answers and appropriate avenues for recourse.
9. The Right to Digital Safety and Privacy
Every child deserves protection in the digital world as well as the physical world. Children should be protected from online exploitation, predatory behavior, cyberbullying, harmful content, and the misuse of their personal information. As technology changes, protections for children must change with it.
10. The Right to Love, Belonging, and Responsible Care
Every child deserves to know they are loved, valued, and worthy. Children deserve stable and supportive relationships with parents, guardians, family members, and other responsible adults who act in their best interests. Caring for a child is both a privilege and a responsibility.
11. The Right to Emotional Well-Being
Every child deserves an environment that supports emotional health as well as physical safety. Children should be able to express their feelings, ask for help, receive appropriate support, and grow without being routinely shamed, threatened, intimidated, or ignored.
12. The Right to Life, Opportunity, and a Future
Every child deserves the opportunity to live, grow, dream, discover who they are, and pursue a meaningful and joyful life. No child should lose that opportunity because an adult, organization, institution, business, or system failed to take reasonable responsibility for their safety.
Our Commitment
The Anthony DeJuan Boatwright Foundation is committed to turning these principles into action. We will continue to advocate for stronger child safety laws, greater accountability, informed parents, safer childcare environments, and protections that put the well-being of children first. We will educate families, engage lawmakers, support meaningful policy reform, and speak for children whose voices may otherwise go unheard. Our work is rooted in one belief: protecting children is not simply a family responsibility. It is a community responsibility. Every child deserves the opportunity to grow up safe, valued, protected, and free to become all they were meant to be.
Protect Childhood. Preserve Their Future.
The Anthony DeJuan Boatwright Foundation believes protecting children requires more than good intentions. It requires informed parents, responsible caregivers, accountable institutions, effective laws, and communities willing to act when children cannot protect themselves. Children should never have to pay the price for an adult’s failure to protect them.
Anthony DeJuan Boatwright Foundation
Advocacy • Education • Accountability • Child Safety