Protection of Children’s Rights in Humanitarian Actions with an Overview of African Countries

Sa？etak The author writes about the role of the media in society, the importance of media ethics and media education, especially in the context of children and the protection of children’s rights. Humanitarian actions aimed at children in need are a frequent topic in the media, but, paradoxically, children and their needs as well as their rights, especially the right to privacy and the right to expression of opinion, are marginalised. The media often appeal to the audience to take part in extending aid through humanitarian actions and by stimulating extreme emotions among members of the audience. It often occurs in such cases that a child, as the main subject of a humanitarian action, gets overly exposed, his/her intimacy thus being accessible to everyone. Such phenomena are often accounted for by the argument that anything being done in the public interest is justified. The aim of this paper is to outline the importance of protecting children as the most vulnerable group of society and children’s rights in prosocial media content such as humanitarian actions. The paper also provides an overview of the status of reporting on humanitarian actions aimed to help children in African countries