Political impotence of youth

Political impotence of students

Nature

In view of the earlier maturity of young people and their increasing involvement in all fields of social activity, the age of political majority in many countries is high, and is therefore an obstacle to active participation by young people in political or parliamentary affairs and to their standing for election. It is significant that the ages at which young people are placed under heavy obligations – for example, the age of criminal responsibility, the age of admission to employment, the call-up age for military service – are generally lower than the age of political or civil majority. In a number of countries the right to stand for election is not granted until an even later age.

Incidence

In many countries the age of political majority is still twenty-one, for example in Belgium, Italy, Malta, Monaco, the Netherlands, Turkey, Colombia, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Australia, India, Pakistan, the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mauritius, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. It is even higher in Italy for senate elections, for which the right to vote is not granted until twenty-five.

Claim

Thirty million students are enrolled in the world's higher institutions of learning. Many are acquiring knowledge and skills to enable them to contribute to the solution of the social and technical problems facing humanity. At any time, the students own working and living conditions are determined by the existing social and economic system's characteristics. Therefore their interests are linked at all times with working youth in general, whether students or not, and all classes of people, professionals or labours who are the productive element in society. However, particularly in the free-market economies, the political responsibilities and roles of students are not incorporated in the social dialectic, either at the national or, where it should have entered naturally, at the local level.