HIBAPRESS-RABAT-ONU
There is no real universal consensus on what age range to consider when it comes to young people. However, for statistical purposes, the United Nations – without prejudice to any other definition proposed by Member States – considers a young person to be a person between the ages of 15 and 24. This definition, which is taken from the organizational work of the International Youth Year (1985) (see A/36/215), was officially approved by the UN General Assembly in its resolution 36/28 of 1981. All UN statistics concerning youth are based on this definition, which is also used in the yearbooks of statistics on questions of demography, education, employment or health published by the United Nations system United.
According to this definition, according to which young people are aged 15 to 24, the term “child” therefore refers to anyone under the age of 14. However, it is important to note that Article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child considers “any human being under the age of 18” to be a child.
At the time, in the absence of other similar documents concerning the rights of young people, the objective of the Convention was to guarantee a framework of protection, as well as rights, to as wide an age group as possible.
Many countries in the world also use the limit of the age of majority (which generally corresponds to 18 years) as a reference element when talking about youth. Eighteen years is in fact the age from which an individual is considered an adult and benefits from equal treatment under the law. However, the operational definition and nuances of the term “young people” vary from country to country, depending on socio-cultural, institutional, economic and political factors.
