“Globally, young people are marching, organizing, and speaking out,” he said in a message marking the Human Rights Day that falls on December 10.
The UN chief said the young people are speaking out the right to a healthy environment, for the equal rights of women and girls, to participate in decision-making and to express their opinions freely.
He said the young people are marching for their right to a future of peace, justice and equal opportunities.
This year, on Human Rights Day, the world will celebrate the role of young people in bringing human rights to life.
Guterres said every single person is entitled to all rights -- civil, political, economic, social and cultural -- regardless of where they live.
He said each person is entitled to all rights regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, social origin, gender, sexual orientation, political or other opinion, disability or income, or any other status.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, in separate statement, said they need to mobilise across the world -- peacefully and powerfully -- to advance a world of rights, dignity and choice for everyone.
“The decision-makers understood that vision very clearly in 1948. Do they understand it now?” she said urging world leaders to show true leadership and long-term vision and set aside narrow national political interests for the sake of everyone, including themselves and all their descendants.
Rightly, Bachelet said, these young people are pointing out that it is their future which is at stake, and the future of all those who have not yet even been born.
“It’s they who will have to bear the full consequences of the actions, or lack of action, by the older generations who currently run governments and businesses, the decision-makers on whom the future of individual countries, regions and the planet as whole depends,” she said.