The Importance of Children's Rights - Essay Example

INTRODUCTION This is a question on the onus of International moral and legal responsibility. There is an assumption in the question that when bad things have happened in the past to unfortunate children, adults were not seen as blameworthy, but recent times have seen a re-consideration of how adults have been involved in the tragedies of children who have had less than happy lives. If a neighbour suspects that a child is not being looked after properly, or that he child is being abused, the neighbour might well call the authorities, who will also impose on the child’s parents to make them change how the child is handled. The parents of the child may well feel that how they raise their children is no one’s business but their own. (They may of course welcome the intervention and co-operate fully with their community.). This example can then be expanded to apply to International laws on the rights of children. The most politically influential such Convention is the UN Convention on the 1989 Rights of the Child (CROC, and occasionally to CRC), The countries affected by such conventions may co-operate with such intervention, or they may, like the more isolationistic neighbour in a community, choose to ignore or reject the policies imposed by their international neighbours. THE IMPORTANCE OF CHILDREN’S RIGHTS When a child is in danger, and people in other countries become aware of that danger, many legal and ethical choices need to be made. Intervention could be regarded as interference while conversely, distance from the problem, can then be criticised as negligence, indifference, or even as indirect support for the people threatening the children affected. Why does anyone need rights? Thomas Hobbes argued pessimistically in The Leviathan 1 that without moral impositions, mankind would be in perpetual conflict with itself. He wrote of ‘a time of war where every man is enemy to every man’. 2 He saw life ungoverned by sovereign law as leading to “continual fear, and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” 3 Without moral authority, Hobbes believed that humanity would collapse into anarchy and bloodshed. The Law and the philosophers promote rights by which to curb such violent tendencies in humanity. The creation and maintenance of a political, legal system nationally and internationally, demonstrates humanity’s mistrust of itself. A convention of rights for children arises from the fear that children are not always safe from the adults who surround them. Recognition of a basic right to necessities like food, clothing and shelter for all underlies much socio-political thinking. Over the years many people have fought for and demanded a share of rights and entitlements for themselves and others. John Locke’s call for universal rights to ‘life, liberty and property’ influenced the US Declaration Of Independence in 1776. (Almond p.260). 4 The French Revolution inspired Thomas Paine’s Rights Of Man (Almond p.260). 5 The development of conventions for children’s rights is a relatively modern one. In the post First World War years, a number of International conventions have arisen to recognise the need for children’s rights, The charity, Save The Children was established in London in 1919. By sisters Eglantyne Jebb and Dorothy Buxton The STC website pages on their history reports; Eglantyne Jebb was the first to press for worldwide safeguards for children. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations in 1989 and now ratified by nearly all countries worldwide, has its roots in her pioneering work. 6 The UN first presented its Declaration Of Human Rights as in 1948. A great deal of today’s moral thinking about the future focuses on children who will inherit the world from our own generation. Environmentalists talk of the dangers of global warming in the next hundred years. People often try to earn money to leave a healthy sum of it to their immediate descendants. Children are seen as worth investing in. This reduces them to an economic commodity. The emotive question, ‘What about the children?’ is a frequent one. Children become pawns in many propaganda wars. A bombing raid on a community will often focus media attention on parents grieving for their lost children, and children lying wounded and orphaned. Desire to avenge children’s deaths can fuel generations of hateful vengeance inspired reprisal attack. Charities will often focus on weeping children in order to tug heartstrings and provoke more voluntary donations. Many charities, such as Save The Children deal almost exclusively with children. The need to protect children from adult hardship is not new. Infancy and childhood have always been respected in history, - There have been archaeological discoveries of baby’s rattles and other comforting toys. 7 It takes a major change in a family or community environment to force the child into a more adult role and to take on serious responsibilities. Trauma, tragedy and loss can very suddenly cast a child into making very grown up decisions. The medieval plague known as The Black Death wiped out half of the world population. In many European communities the children had to learn how to plough and harvest because there were too few adults left alive to do the work. Such a crisis can rob a child of his or her childhood overnight. In consequence, for generations, children worked in the fields, down the coalmines, and in the post industrial revolution cotton mills alongside their parents. By the nineteenth century, the tide began to turn back. Europe and America were giving children stronger safeguards and increasing distance from the world of the adult. In 1811, Robert Owen pushed for and secured an Act of Parliament to outlaw the use of children under nine in the linen industry8. In 1889, The Prevention Of Cruelty To Children Act 9came into force. This was not directed at employers, but directly at parents. The reconceptualising of the rights of children is nothing new. It began nearly two hundred years ago. What is new is its global application from the UN nerve centre. Back in the 1900’S the authorities in the UK were already shocked by reports of the unregulated levels of cruelty some families could impose on their children. New legislation allowed the State to intervene directly in domestic affairs in Britain. For the first time, the authorities could even separate a child from his or her parents, temporarily or permanently. Such powers have steadily been increased dramatically over the years. However, the problems have also gotten worse, which raises doubts as to whether the rights conventions are of any real practical merit. Neuberger states that there were ‘79,000 children’ in State care in the UK in March 2003. 1The question must be asked as to what extent such extreme measures as taking a child away from the family home to put the child in foster care are justified. Could some less Draconian measure have been used in many cases? Added to this is the criticism that the UK, in failing to protect children in their own countries, should be so eager to champion imposing similar policies for child protection abroad. When a child have been removed from abusive parents, and taken to live with foster parents or in care homes the child is already traumatised and adversely affected in some way. Preventative measures and the threat of State intervention, have failed for the 79,000 children Neuberger refers to. 1 Knowing when a child becomes an adult is almost impossible. Social convention and law often simply sets an age at which a child comes of age. In the UK, that age is set at eighteen. In many cultures, children are given a maturation rite on the date when they are regarded as having become an adult. In the UK this involves giving someone the ‘key to the door;’ on their 181th or 21st birthday. Neuberger writes of such rites of passage If you have a maturation ceremony, suggesting you are now ready to become part of the adult world, the assumption must be that you were hitherto not an adult, but a child. 1 Freudians would share the view that a child is not a younger, smaller version of an adult. Taking philosopher John Locke’s notion that the child’s mind starts out as a ‘Tabula Rasa’ (a blank canvas), 1Freudians see the child as highly impressionable. What happens to a child in the first five years of development, for Freudians, affects the way that child will go on to perceive and interact with the world in later life. Children’s Rights conventions see that state of impressionable, vulnerable childhood frame of mind as being maintained up to the time the child legally matures into an adult. The conventions indicate a pessimistic notion that without state and international pressure, children globally will be given the wrong impressions. Here is a reference from a paper written by Vanessa Pupavac on The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights Of The Child (1989) The paper suggests that the elevation of children’s rights is a preamble on a profound disenchantment with humans 1 This is a reversion to Hobbesian pessimism. It is the conviction that children cannot possibly prosper without state intervention. The people challenged by such Conventions and legislation may feel as if they are, or were coping with their children just fine until the UN intervened in their lives. As the paper (presented by Vanessa Pupavac, argues; The convention undermines a given peoples’ right to self-determination. It threatens international intervention in how a nation raises and treats its children. It imposes external values on a cultural social order. 1 THE UN CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD Here are some observations on extracts quoted directly from the UN Convention itself, beginning with the introduction; … The family, as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community, 1 Here at least is recognition that the child needs a family, and the indication that a child’s family may benefit too from the protectionism offered to the child. Through UN influenced legislation. . Bearing in mind that, as indicated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, "the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth. 1 Here is a crucial factor – to protect the child in the womb, the UN has to prioritise rights of the Mother at least up to the time of birth. The child’s needs may often only be met through the parents, especially the Mother. The rights and needs of any child can only be put into practice in contest with the rights of all of the people who interact socially with that child. Article 12 of the Convention states;   1. States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child. 1 This shows how the UN protection of the child policies has to operate. The UN has little if any direct contact with individual children around the World. In fact, though it talks of ‘The Child’ as if to a single being, the UN is not likely to notice children having problems unless cruelty and malpractice towards them is widespread and possibly visible in the eyes of the global media. The UN works for the benefit of the child by getting supporting nations (those that have signed up in agreement to the Convention (to alter their own authoritive legal procedures to something along the lines of a Western model. This means that a child in another nation that respects the UN Convention, would be expected to receive the same legal and social support as a child in the USA facing similar difficulties, The Convention moves from affecting just the protective rights of the child to calling for a radical reformation of many a nation’s entire legal and political infrastructure. Some nations and states will understandably be reluctant to, and in some cases unable to afford to introduce such sweeping changes to their economic and social policy making activity. Article 18/. 2. Where a child is illegally deprived of some or all of the elements of his or her identity, States Parties shall provide appropriate assistance and protection, with a view to re-establishing speedily his or her identity. 1 Here again, it is the state itself that is expected to t protects the child, no using models and guidelines set out by the UN. Article 38/. - 1. States Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for rules of international humanitarian law applicable to them in armed conflicts, which are relevant to the child. 1 War itself is no respecter of the child. Short of evacuation from the war zone, as happened with British Children during the WW2 Blitz, the child cannot help but be vulnerable in a country at war. The separation from parents and friends in it will often also add to the child’s distress. Here, the only way to protect a child would be international pressure on the opposing forces to commit themselves to peace talks and cease-fire. Article 38/. 2. States Parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities. 2 Many people will regard that age limit as far too low. Such articles, in influencing a nation’s judicial and social policies, impose an intense legal and social reformation in the outlook of that country. Pupavac write; ‘International pressure can undermine national sovereignty’. 2 The regime change in Iraq is a clear example of this. Saddam Hussein’s regime has been toppled in favour of a new political order. The International community has not allowed Iraqis to control their own destinies. This has created a considerable degree of resentment towards the soldiers and other Westerners still serving in Iraq and throughout the Near East. UN lead sweeping changes in how a nation should raise and protect its children risk facing similar consequential repercussions. As Almond writes. Beyond the liberal democracies, pressure for rights may, in addition, be seen as cultural imperialism on the part of Western liberal nations. 2 Laws, rules, ethical codes of conduct, religious commandments, conventions and rights are often imposed on people in a way that shows that those people cannot be trusted to behave themselves otherwise without having the right way to behave imposed on them by a higher authority. The cult of the international expert robs people of the right to make their own moral decisions. The prescription of higher law beyond the reach of political contention undermines the right of their people to determine both the good and the political process by which the good is determined, hence (it) is anti-democratic. However, ironically, in the name of promoting rights, human rights advocates end up eliminating rights and denying moral and political agency to individuals and whole populations. 2 Giving children rights that have some independence from the rights of adults creates huge problems. What hurts the grown ups who raise the children inevitably hurts the children too. A child will be saddened byte illness or death of a parent. Divorce, or marital strife between parents will affect a child. Separating a child from even allegedly abusive parents, temporarily or permanently, will affect the child’s emotional make up too. If we bomb cities, the children there will be as much in danger as the adults. A grown up who cannot afford food for a child may also not be able to feed himself. It is almost impossible to separate the plight of the child from the plight of the grown up community on who that child depends. That said, children are not as totally adult dependent, weak or without the creative acumen to influence political thinking by them. In 1212, a pre-teenage child, Stephen of Cloyes raised an army of 30,oo, all of them children, for the disastrous ‘Children’s Crusade’. 2 Such a campaign too skills and imagination that few adults could match. The CROC and similar Rights conventions can underestimate the bravery and resolve shown by many children themselves. We are developing an increasing nanny state mentality in which everyone, and not just children, becomes dependent on assistance by outsiders in various specialised fields. We are in great danger of being over-protective towards our own children, let alone children in other nations. A child spoilt and mollycoddled with expensive luxuries such as a cell phone, personal computer and a television set in the bedroom, and access to junk food may be seen as being in as much danger as a child who is living in a more impoverished social order. Despite such reservations, the CROC has been successfully taken on board by over 200 nations. 2 (Australian) While satisfactory to the politicians of those states, the CROC does not always make appositive impression on their citizens. As Forbin observes; . The public may see a law strengthening childrens rights as being tantamount to restricting parents rights, notably their rights to family autonomy and privacy, including their right to bring their children up as they see fit. 2. Australians, for one example have shown strong condemnation of their government’s embrace of the CROC. Their criticisms have been dismissed as based on a series of 2four myths and misconceptions about how the CROC could affect them, which the authorities are taking great pains to correct. The first myth is that CROC interferes with Australias sovereignty. The second myth is that CROC interferes with the Federal balance, imposing Commonwealth will on the States. The third myth is that CROC interferes with parents rights and is anti-family. Finally, there is a myth that Australian laws with respect to childrens rights are themselves adequate and that CROC is therefore unnecessary in the Australian context. These myths highlight the confusion in Australia about the effect of international treaties generally and CROC in particular. 3 There is clearly a widespread belief that the UN policies are interfering with Australian domestic policy making processes. It angers many Australians to find that their way of raising their children is a subject of international scrutiny and choice. As Melinda Jones, in her Australian Journal Of Human Rights. Article states; “There is a concern that Australian law should not be made by non-elected, non-democratic, non-government bodies outside Australia.” 3 The UN imposing such a Convention on them when they believe that they have a strong healthy, democratic and progressive approach to rising and educating their children offends Australians. However, according to Action for Children (South Australia), …. Approximately 14 per cent of Australias children live in poverty. Many of these are indigenous children and those living in remote areas, where there is not only poverty but also little in the way of government services and support. 3 Virtually no country in the World is without problems of homelessness, abuse, drug trafficking, and pregnancy in their juvenile population. The politicians of most of the World hold the CROC in high regard, even if their people do not share their enthusiasm. Only two major countries do not welcome or ratify CROC legislation. Somalia, 3 which has a poor human rights record in general (not just towards children, and more surprisingly the USA. ,3 US representatives in the UN did sign the CROC agreement on February 16, 1995, Friedman) but the document was then not passed through the Senate for ratification. Friedman gives two reasons for this. 3 /. Up to 2005, children who committed murders could face the Death Penalty in many US States. This was in clear contravention of the CROC (which Friedman spells as CRC). 31 2/. There is fierce objection to the CROC from the US religious right. Friedman adds; 3 The Ministry Focus On The Family has called on the U.S. government to de-ratify the CRC, calling it a danger to children, parents and national sovereignty. Focus primary criticism is the vague, open-ended nature of the principle goals of the CRC. Focus states that because the principles are not explicitly defined, they can be used as tools to advance radical ideological agendas.(Friedman)3 CONCLUSION That the CROC is re-conceptualising children’s Rights is a good thing. Had it been said that the rights of children had been re-conceptualised, or that they were in no need for re-conceptualising, then there would be cause for concern. The CROC is in itself a child, born in 1989, thus, only seventeen years old. Its impact on society, and especially on children have yet to be fully realised. Like any child, it could grow up to be a good adult, or a bad one. It’s development, and its exploitation is in the hands of the people, the judiciary, and the law. He may yet grow up and make his parents proud. Read More