Children as people

May 10, 2009 Editorial

Last week, there were two seminal events in the glacial evolution of our appreciation of children as autonomous human beings, worthy of bearing rights. The President swore in the members of the National Rights of the Child Commission and Parliament passed the Protection of Children Bill (PCB) 2009.

The Commission is one of four (the others are the Women’s, the Indigenous, and the Ethnic Relations Commissions) that will enable the establishment of a national Human Rights Commission that has been promised since 2000. The PCB 2009 is one of a cluster of five Bills that will offer comprehensive statutory protection of the rights of our children: these have also been in the works for almost a decade.

For most of history, children have occupied an ambiguous netherworld in most societies as far as their possession of rights – even as they were touted as “the apple of their parents’ eyes” and “the future of their societies”. The result was that their treatment depended on the whims, fancies and idiosyncrasies of their parents and guardians.
Gradually, it dawned on enlightened leaders that this situation created great injustices and inequities to millions of children worldwide as they suffered under the yoke of traditions that were sanctified by national laws.

In 1989, after a decade of debate and discussion, the UN General Assembly adopted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) – a comprehensive, internationally binding agreement on the rights of children. It incorporated children’s civil and political rights (like their treatment under the law); social, economic and cultural rights (like an adequate standard of living); and protection rights (from abuse and exploitation).

Even though Guyana has long been a signatory to the Convention, twenty years down the line we are only now starting to put the mechanisms in place to give it teeth. While not explicitly stated, it will be the task of the National Rights of the Child Commission to ensure that all the rights articulated in the UNHCR are given legislative bases and then enforced, since if systematically breached, appeals can be made to the UN.

In the meantime we have been regaled in the press on a daily basis of various and sundry abuses against children in all three identified areas needing protection. Especially egregious has been the instances of sexual abuse that would indicate that the phenomenon has reached epidemic proportions in our country.

But no less insidious, for instance, are the economic exploitation inherent in child labour and the denial of their civil rights when they are not protected by the justice system.
We suggest that the National Rights of the Child Commission embark immediately on a countrywide education programme about what is entailed in observing the mandate of the UNHCR, since the materials are easily available and very comprehensive.

For those who fear that children will be running wild, the Preamble acknowledges the family as the fundamental unit of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of children. It also states that the family should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community.

There are four general principles that serve as guides to action: that all the rights guaranteed must be available to all children without discrimination of any kind; that the best interests of the child must be a primary consideration in all actions concerning children; that every child has the right to life, survival and development; and that the child’s view must be considered and taken into account in all matters affecting him or her.

The substantive articles, which are now being incorporated in our laws, can be grouped under survival rights, development rights, participation rights and protection rights. The PCRB 2009 just passed, deals with the last set of rights and empowers, for instance, the state to make “protective interventions” in the lives of children who are at risk, of either being physically, emotionally or sexually harmed or exploited, at the hands of their parents or guardians and or any other person.