The right to play

The list of human rights is getting quite long these days with the addition of every conceivable kind of right to the already long record.

The latest addition is the “right to play”.

At first glance, this right might sound out of place, but deeper consideration would make one realise that it makes as much sense as other rights.

There is now a global organisation for this purpose, based in Switzerland, called “Right to play”, with branches on all five continents.

The organisation says it supports this right in order to “help children, youth and their communities to overcome the effects of poverty, conflict and disease by engaging girls, persons with disabilities, children affected by HIV/AIDS, street children, former child combatants and refugees”.

It also says that it strives to improve children’s academic performance, using games as a tool for education, and fostering physical, cognitive and social development.

Supporters say the right to play can be associated with health, discipline, comradeship, friendship, education, the spirit of competition and mental health.

This right also entails heavy responsibilities on parents, schools and even governments.

Parents are called upon to encourage their children to play, schools are asked to provide facilities and time for the exercise of this right, and governments must provide playgrounds and fields in various parts of their cities for this purpose.

Critics might submit equally persuasive arguments in favour of deleting this from the list of established rights.

Those opposing it claim that widening the scope of human rights might come at the expense of more urgently needed rights that have yet to be firmly established and protected.

And that additions to the already long list of human rights would deprive the process of safeguarding rights of the much-needed focus, that opening the door wide open to all aspects of human rights could take away concentration on fundamental human rights.

The UN Human Rights Council already has too many mandate holders under its special procedure programme, which reduces direction and concentration from the process of protecting human rights.

A line needs to be drawn somewhere to end the never-stopping additions to the list of human rights to ensure that existing issues are dealt with thoroughly, without being charged with additional ones of peripheral value.

That said, the right to play is important and should be endorsed as a positive element.