War and the rights of children

At the end of the First World War (1918), thousands of girls and boys were left to get by as they could, orphaned or abandoned, completely vulnerable. The brutality of the “Great War” stirred in the world community awareness of human rights and, particularly, of children’s rights. In 1924 the League of Nations, an international body with the principle mission to establish the foundations for peace and international relations, adopted the Declaration of Geneva, which for the first time recognised and backed the existence of the specific rights of children over and above all considerations of race, sex, nationality, religious or political belief, emphasizing the responsibility and duty of adults to ensure that these rights were fulfilled. However, the document had no legally binding power over other states and it lost steam to become nothing more than a declaration of intentions. A short time later, during WWII (1939-1945), the rights of millions of civilians were once again brutally contravened, and the children on both sides became innocent victims.

Film: Lore