Youth rights movement in the United States

The youth rights movement (also known as youth liberation) seeks to grant the rights to young people that are traditionally reserved for adults, due to having reached a specific age or sufficient maturity. This is closely akin to the notion of evolving capacities within the children's rights movement, but the youth rights movement differs from the children's rights movement in that the latter places emphasis on the welfare and protection of children through the actions and decisions of adults, while the youth rights movement seeks to grant youth the liberty to make their own decisions autonomously in the ways adults are permitted to, or to lower the legal minimum ages at which such rights are acquired, such as the age of majority and the voting age.

Youth rights have increased over the last century in many countries. The youth rights movement seeks to further increase youth rights, with some advocating intergenerational equity.

Youth rights are one aspect of how youth are treated in society. Other aspects include how adults see and treat youth, and how open society is to youth participation.

Of primary importance to youth rights advocates are historical perceptions of young people, which they say are oppressive and informed by paternalism, adultism and ageism in general, as well as fears of children and youth. Several of these perceptions made by society include the assumption that young people are incapable of making crucial decisions and need protecting from their tendency to act impulsively. Youth rights advocates believe those perceptions inform laws throughout society, including voting age, child labor laws, right-to-work laws, curfews, drinking/smoking age, gambling age, age of consent, driving age, youth suffrage, emancipation of minors, minors and abortion, closed adoption, corporal punishment, the age of majority, and military conscription. Restrictions on young people that would be considered unacceptable if applied to adults are viewed by youth rights advocates as a form of discrimination.

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