Youth perspective
Youths perspective is a concept promoted by youth movements, which seek to make visible the barriers they face in order to participate, be taken into account and exercise their rights due to the scheme of adult-centred oppression on which societies have been built in history. It seeks to insert the realities, problems, needs and opinions of young people in the public agenda, from the voices of the youths, to promote intergenerational articulation and eradicate the discourses that legitimize the conditioning of rights. It identifies adultcentrism as a scheme that oppresses young people generating stigmas about who they  are and the role they play in societies; a form of age discrimination ,known as ageism, that generates asymmetric power relations between the ages, affecting infants, adolescents and young people by subordinating them to adults who systematically make their needs, problems, experiences invisible; imposing plans, lifestyles; and denying the possibility of weaving bonds of intergenerational solidarity. In this respect, the youths perspective opposes adultcentrism and does so by changing the way in which young people were historically named. Now they speak of them in the plural "youths", recognizing in young people diverse identities, orientations, contexts and sociocultural expressions. They reject  the visions and stereotypes that have been historically built on youths; make visible a problem of structural discrimination due to their age and build a new vision, from where they position themselves as: subjects of rights (it implies that all their human rights must be recognized, respected and guaranteed, without being conditioned on their age); key development actors (they are not a vulnerable population, but fundamental actors for the development of countries); the present (it is not a stage of preparation for adult life, it is a way of being a person today, valid and respectable); with progressive autonomy (with  the ability to decide on their life plans and assume responsibilities gradually, so the responsibility of the State, society and family is to generate the necessary conditions for them to do so). Methodology. The youths perspective allows the identification, development and promotion of social practices and legal and institutional mechanisms that guarantee that young people are recognized as subjects of rights, with agency capacity and with freedom over their life plans. As a methodology, it has implied a change of paradigm, to stop defining youth from the vision that adults have about them. Lydia Alpízar and Marina Bernal point out  that many studies, public policies and laws are carried out by people (adults or young people) who consider that, from their place, they know what young people think, need or feel, without taking into account the opinion of young people. Therefore, the youths have positioned themselves so that the perspective of the youths is incorporated in all the things that involve them under the emblem "“nothing about youths without youths”""." Background. Lydia Alpízar and Marina Bernal give an account of the different visions made on youth in history as well as the theoretical approaches with which the concept of youth  has been approached. Youth as a social construct. The most recent perspective is based on theoretical approaches from anthropology and sociology developed in the last thirty years, defining youth as a socio-cultural construct. This means that youth is permanently being constructed and reconstructed, historically. Each society defines "youth" based on its own cultural, social, political, and economic parameters; there is no single or always applicable definition. Thus, as a social construction, traditional views of youth can be transformed, deconstructed and reconstructed, and replaced. José Manuel Valenzuela Arce refers to the youth condition as a category and conceptualizes youth as  a historically defined socio-cultural construction. He understands youth identities as products of processes of dispute and negotiation between external representations to young people and those that they themselves adopt. As for Carles Feixa, he distinguishes youth as a transitory condition, unlike other social conditions such as ethnicity, race or gender. However, the youth perspective uses a life stage approach, which means recognizing that all stages of life are transitory so none can justify discrimination and violence based on age and that what happens at one stage has repercussions on the rest. Age ranges per country. “Youth" is not standardized  to an identical age range in all countries, but each country defines its own and is determined by the social, ethnic and cultural context. The following table identifies the age range in some Latin American countries, the law, and the institute or ministry with which it was determined: On the other hand, ECLAC publishes the number of young people by country. Demographic bonus. Latin America and the Caribbean have 165 millions of young people between 10 and 24 years old, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), representing the largest demographic bonus, that is, the population of young people  has reached its highest level, so young people have and will have a very important role in the direction of countries, governments, economies, cultural practices, etc. Intersectionality. The youths perspective uses intersectionality to identify other conditions such as gender, class, ethnicity, sex-affective preference or orientation, physical or mental condition, among others, which generate differentiated youth experiences that can lead to increased social disadvantage. LGBTTTIAQ+ youths. Young lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, transvestite, intersex, asexual, queer, etc. people are victims of a society based on cis-hetero-patriarchal hegemony and gender binarism that, added to an infantilization towards youths, results  in stigmas and prejudices that invalidate their identity and cast doubt on the capacity for self-identification, impeding the right to free development of the personality and their sexual and reproductive rights. Afro-descendant youth. The term Afro-descendant was adopted on December 7, 2009 during the Regional Conference of the Americas held in Santiago de Chile. According to Esther Pineda, an Afro-descendant is any person, in whose family nucleus there was one or more people of African origin, regardless of whether or not it manifests itself in their skin tone and body. Similarly, the Afro-descendant person may  or may not have knowledge of his or her heritage and regardless of this, recognize himself, deny his Afro-descent or be in the process of such recognition. Afro-descendant youths are all those people who are descendants of the African diaspora who agree the legal frameworks of each country correspond to an age range to be considered young. The Afro-descendant population is considered a vulnerable group, due to the racial discrimination of which it is a victim as a legacy of transatlantic trafficking. Indigenous youth. One of the difficulties in recognizing indigenous youths is that the categories “youth ” and “indigenous” do not emerge as direct data from reality, but rather are categories constructed from hegemonic and vertical definitions. For this reason, indigenous youths are directly or indirectly violated and discriminated against, both because of their age, as well as for economic and social reasons and conditions. The exclusion of indigenous youths is multiple: violence for residing on their lands, dispossession and displacement forced, barriers to access to education, discrimination based on class or social status, gender violence. They are historical subjects and inheritors of an ethnic history that resists in the present, as well as a political-organizational  capacity for participation and defense of their human rights. Young women. Young women suffer from sexist and adult-centered violence, which implies over power, control and repression of their body and sexuality; as well as the imposition of roles, and the submission to hierarchical power relations. Discrimination against young people affects men in the same way, but being women empowers them and multiplies vulnerabilities, suffering double or triple discrimination. Issues faced by young people. The youths face problems that do not derive from their age, contrary to what the adult-centered vision expresses, but from the social conditions that do  not guarantee that they live and travel youth in a dignified way. Among these problems are: age discrimination, pathologization of youth, patronage of youth, stigmatization, homologation of youth, control and repression, non-intersectional strategies focused on youth, invisibility of their diversity, barriers to active participation in the decisions that involve them, conditioning of their rights due to their age, intergenerational injustices, criminalization, lack of access to public services, imposition of anachronistic schemes / roles, and to a large extent institutional, family and social violence. Young people´s rights. In 2017, Resolution 35/14 of the 35th session of the United Nations Human Rights  Council was issued. This official document recognizes and exhorts all UN member states to promote and ensure the full exercise of all human rights and fundamental freedoms of young people. The Human Rights of young people refer to the full enjoyment of human rights that all people have by virtue of being people. According to the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR), because of their age, young people face discrimination and obstacles that hinder the full enjoyment of their Human Rights, this limits their potential and development. Faced with the conditioning of the rights of young people due to their  age, the perspective of youth positions that they are subject to rights and they mobilize so that these are guaranteed; Some of the rights that make up the youth advocacy agenda are: Sexual and reproductive rights. The youths take up the principle of "the personal is political" of Kate Millett's feminism, to recognize that the body is the first space where rights are exercised, but when it comes to the young body, there is control and repression of their sexuality, despite being an element present in all stages of life and essential for health. Therefore, they promote the exercise  of sexual citizenship, where children, adolescents and youth know their sexual and reproductive rights and demand that these be respected, among them: the right to decide freely, autonomously and informed about their body and sexuality. , the right to a life free of physical, psychological and sexual violence, the right to freely and informed decisions about their reproductive life, the right to comprehensive sexuality education, among others found in the "Sexual Rights of Adolescents and Young People Book". Environment. The youths position the need to guarantee the care and respect of Planet Earth with a youth perspective in the processes of  environmental education and information, in citizen participation for decision-making and in access to justice in environmental matters, as well as in the design, implementation and evaluation of any program that affects and modifies human relations with Planet Earth, to face narratives lacking generational justice. Decent job. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), there are million unemployed youth worldwide and 145 million young workers live in poverty. For this reason, the OIT launched the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth, It is the first comprehensive effort of the United Nations system to promote youth employment. The objective is  to maximize the effectiveness of investments in youth employment and to assist countries in meeting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Political participation. The youths oppose the clientelization of youths in political parties, which limits their participation to secondary actions and denies their participation in decision-making positions. In the National Youth Agenda, they point out the need to strengthen the participation of youth from their autonomous spaces, considering the different contexts of which they are part; promote the appropriation of youth identity as a political identity; invest in actions that strengthen the capacities of youth and strengthen the tools  for their impact on the transformation of their environment, etc. Security and access to justice. The youths oppose the criminalization of youths that makes the structural causes of violence and delinquency invisible. They require disaggregated, systematized and accessible data; law enforcement and administration with specialized approaches and a youth perspective; mechanisms for friendly access to justice for children and adolescents; spaces for the participation of young people in shaping local and national security strategies; restorative justice mechanisms with guarantees of non-repetition, comprehensive repair of damages and preventive, etc. International treaties and conventions. There are international treaties, protocols and conventions  where the human rights of young people can be found, even if they are not directly expressed, if they include the clause of non-discrimination by age or any other circumstance, for example: In addition, there is an Ibero-American Convention on the Rights of Young People, promoted by the Ibero-American Youth Organization. The Convention was adopted by sixteen (16) Ibero-American states in October 2005 and entered into force in March 2008. Its Protocol is in process of ratification by the Ibero-American States. Protection strategies. The recognition of the rights of young people, as well as their  condition of vulnerability due to systematic violations, has led to the development of specific protection mechanisms, including: Friendly services. Friendly services are a space or place where quality care is provided, considering their age, evolutionary and cognitive development and maturity, and with strict adherence to the provisions of this norm and other applicable provisions, to people in this age group, to help them make free, responsible and informed decisions regarding sexual and reproductive health. According to the ECLAC Youth Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean, there are 28 countries in the region that have specialized institutions to serve youths . They are characterized because the care is provided by empathetic, sensitive and trained staff; with confidentiality and privacy, with dignified, equitable and respectful treatment, without discrimination of any kind, respecting human rights, particularly sexual and reproductive rights, with a gender perspective and considering their cultural belonging. Specialized justice. Specialized justice implies guaranteeing access to, and provision of, justice with differentiated approaches and a youth perspective; ensuring friendly access mechanisms; guaranteeing the rights to truth and justice; generating disaggregated, systematized and accessible data, by age, sex, gender, ethnic origin and place of origin, on victims, incidence of crime and provision of  justice, etc. Best interest of the minor. The principle of the "best interest of the child", also known as the "best interest of the minor", is a set of actions that seek to guarantee an integral development (material, affective), that allows to live fully and to reach the well-being and protection of the minor. This principle implies its primary consideration in the design of public policies and in the elaboration of regulations concerning children. The Interamerican Court of Human Rights has pointed out the obligation to fully respect the right of children, adolescents and young people to be heard  in all decisions that affect their lives, being not only a right in itself, but one that must be taken into account to interpret and enforce all their other rights. Violation of youth rights. In recent years, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has issued precautionary measures to a variety of people, identified as "young people" or "youths". Youth movement for advocacy. The youths movement in recent years has promoted the recognition of the role of youths within organizational processes and social changes, generating advocacy at all levels for the incorporation of the youths perspective in the United  Nations System, the American System , legislative systems, public policies, initiatives, as well as within academic, governmental and civil society organizations.