Naming Child: A fundamental right of Juvenile
By: Assistant Professor Abdul Qahar Azizi
Abstract
Children are entitled to a set of fundamental rights. No one can deprive children. Naming a child is one of the child’s rights. A child is entitled to having a name upon birth; even a fetus is entitled to the right either. In both cases, whether a fetus is born alive, or immediately dies within the postnatal period has the right to have a name. Yet naming a child is a controversial issue, whether a father or mother has the right to name their child, or other relatives have the right to name the child. In Afghanistan, the law has not stated whether a father or mother has the right. In Islam, it is the exclusive right of the father, but he can seek the advice of the mother of the child. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Cairo Declaration on Human Right in Islam (CDHRI), and other international treaties and conventions provides for the right to name a child; however, none of them specified whether a father or a mother has the right to name their children. Despite this ambiguity, Islam specifies not only who has the right to name a child, but also provides for the day of naming a child, and recommends special ceremonies such as slaughtering upon the birth of a child and giving her/him a name at the time.
This paper employs an analytical-comparative approach to explore the provisions of Islam, the regulations of the Law on the Protection of Child Rights in Afghanistan, the CRC, UDHR, and CDHRI concerning the right to name a child.
Keywords: Child, Naming, Islam, Father, Mother.