Children's Rights in Iran: the Survey of Existing Laws and Views of People in Tehran 2009-2010

The social interactions are basic elements of all societies. Fair and optimum social relations are the most important element of social capital. The sociological theories emphasize on the mutual relation between society and family. Human beings develop a special behavior according to their social situations in the social relations.Some capital exchanges in every relation In other words, different human capitals such as social, cultural and economic capitals will determinate the types of social relations within family and society. Considering the social relations governing many of human societies, contravention of children`s rights is an important part of severe difficulties facing many countries in the world specially the developing ones such as Iran. Children`s rights have been challenged not only in Iran but also in other parts of the world. This research has been done based on this fact and by conducting a survey of people’s point of view and the level of their awareness regarding the children`s rights and existing rules, in order to find out the reasons for contravention of children’s rights in Iran. The statistical population of this survey concluded people above 18 years old who have been living in this case in Tehran for more than five years. They have been chosen by “stratified” sampling method. The research methods are documentary and survey. Data collection instruments were questionnaires, interview and content analysis. The results show that people who are richer in terms of social, economic and cultural capital, have more awareness about children’s rights and are less likely to contravene these rights. Also, the results of discovering tests show that men are more likely to contravene children’s rights than women. The kind of attitude towardlegal institutions of defense and protectfrom children's rights show that respondents have little knowledge about them, and this problem increase more contravention of children`srights. The role of awareness in violation of the rights and viewpoints of people are very important due tosome misuse from children in different forms like the economic and social pressure, inattention to children, physical violence and psychological pressure and harassment. The findings indicate that there is a significant relationship between the attitude toward legal institution of the children`s rights and the gender of respondents. The conclusion shows that women have more knowledge about these legal institutions than men. So if the relation between the members of family and also the relation between family and the other groups such as friends and acquaintances increase, the social capital will become more than before and at last, the increasing of social capital will cause to respect the children`s rights in society and family.