Why The Rights of The Child?

By “the rights of the child” we mean the rights of all children, everywhere. Every child, no matter where it lives, shares the same innocence and the same lack of jaded cynicism which distinguishes it from the life of an adult.

Notwithstanding the presence amongst us of adults who “just don’t grow up,” a child, in the usual sense of the term is a growing human being, who depends to a greater or lesser degree on a grown human being! The adult therefore, is responsible for the child and what is written on the rights of a child must address both adults and children, but particularly the adult.

Thomas Paine’s “Rights of Man,” should of course have been addressed to women too! But no outrage accompanies the realization that Mr. Paine has completely omitted the rights of the child! The rights of the child must be seen as having inherent value in itself and in this sense, it ought to stand splendidly independent of the rights of the adult. 

A child will probably revolt (as Mr. Paine advised American men to do!) if it could muster its own forces against the patronizing premise that it falls to adults to determine its rights! But the principle from nature and other mammals is that the adult for better, for worse, does indeed guide, lead and shape the life of the child (or cub, foal, calf).  Any child reading this essay should therefore bear with me and read on - and perhaps he or she will have a more generous view of me by the essay’s end.

The right to life must surely be the most fundamental right of both adult and child. But the child’s right to life is unique, because it is often almost wholly dependant upon the adult. Within the womb, with its faculties and organs forming at breathtaking pace or already formed, the child has to travel only a few inches, before its right to life is recognized.  Just outside the womb, most societies do punish the taking of a child’s life. What if it were possible to reverse that journey of a few inches and return a child to the womb? The journey of a few inches must not determine a child’s right to life.

Once born, the baby is still fully dependant on its mother (or carer). This is not different from most other mammals, but the human being, not content with writing millions of pages on the care of baby human beings, has written almost as many books and articles on the care of other baby mammals! All these books emphasize the care of the mother and the baby’s right to a normal life at this stage must address the mother’s right to life and well being. Perhaps the “Well Baby Clinic” in our paediatric hospitals should be renamed the “Mother and Child Clinic” - or any name that recognizes the key role of the mother in the life of the baby.

The growing and adolescent child’s right to life is constantly threatened by the choices and follies of adults.  Well behaving adults are an essential condition of the right to life of the child. The wars and conflicts that rich nations promote and cheer from thousands of miles away directly take the lives of hundreds of thousands of children.  They also cruelly injure and maim many more children and kill and maim the adults upon whom the child depends. Those who passionately believe in the protection of the life of a child within the womb, must also just as passionately oppose the amoral arms industry and the violent conflicts and wars their governments fund and support.  

Since numbers of killed sometimes passes as a statistic, here is a searing poem by the South African poet Afzal Moola, on the death of one little girl, violently killed by war or conflict. The same terrifying story is repeated, hundreds of thousands of times - and humanity must hang its head in collective shame:

From “A Child of War” by Afzal Moola:

As she lies bleeding

the girl who skipped and hopped to school

all of nine and a half years old

with ribbons in her hair and a laugh that was

her father's pride

as she lies bleeding

the warm bullet lodged in her torn stomach

she stares at her skipping rope

as her blood soaks it the colour of the cherries her mummy buys

as she lies bleeding

she sees the people through the thick black smoke

blurred visions of scattering feet and shoes left behind

hearing nothing but the pinging in her blown-out eardrums

as she lies bleeding

she slips away quickly and then she is dead

a mangled heap of a nine and a half year old girl

whose laugh was her father's pride

as she lies bleeding 

In a globalized economic system, a new tool of war is what is euphemistically called, “sanctions.” These sanctions regularly devastate the life of the child and also directly and indirectly cause many children to die. 

The crippling sanctions imposed upon Iraq by the then Democratic American president Bill Clinton for example, did not hurt the rulers of Iraq, but led to the terrible suffering of the Iraqi people and children. Iraq went from having one of the lowest infant and child mortality figures in the world, to one of the highest in the world.  When confronted with the evidence that the Clinton administration sanctions had killed more than 500,000 Iraqi children, Clinton’s secretary of state Madeline Albright was asked a follow up question: were the sanctions worth the lives of 500,000 Iraqi children? Albright’s chilling reply was, “we think the price is worth it.”

The traumatized and dying Iraqi child was soon staring down the actual barrel of a gun again, when a supposedly “pro life” Republican president, George W Bush launched a punitive war against Iraq, after deliberately lying about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in that country. This unnecessary and colossal act of violence against a country already reeling from many years of lethal sanctions, was deemed “necessary” by a compliant and lying press and media. MIT has done a detailed analysis of the human cost of this war and its aftermath.  The MIT analysis reveals that  between 800,000 - 1.3 million men, women and Iraqi children have died as a direct result of George W Bush’s Iraq war.

This is a good time to remind the world again, of the heroic Australian journalist, Julian Assange, whose inspiring story of extraordinary courage in the defence of human rights has been conveniently forgotten by a corrupt press at the behest of its paymasters. Through his journalism, Assange has exposed in vivid detail, the deliberate targeting and killing of Iraqi civilians by the American armed forces. Citizens all over the world, concerned about the rights of the child must support the “free Assange” campaign, along with a relentless campaign against captured media and arrogant governments consumed by greed, power and blackmail.

The right to life of the child is closely linked to the right to protection of the child from harm. Other mammals will fight fiercely to defend their young from predators and even the perception of a threat will provoke an attack against the aggressor. But human beings regularly and shockingly fail in the duty to protect the child.

Many dangers abound for the child, including alas sometimes, in its own family. When society intervenes to protect this child from abuse and violence, it cannot adopt a “hands off” approach to those who it appoints to intervene on the child’s behalf.  Social workers for example must be closely and constantly supervised and monitored and provisions made for rapid removal of workers who themselves perpetrate or condone child abuse. Stable, safe and secure families must close ranks around the abused child and treat the child as if it were their own.  

Nor must it be assumed that the State has either a conscience or responsibility for protection of the child who faces danger or abuse. Indeed, the common situation nowadays is for the child to be in danger because of the State and to need protection from the State.

The brilliant, British illustrator and cartoonist Ben Moran recently created in a moving picture, a message for humanity more powerful than innumerable words. In his illustration, the State is undoubtedly the villain, poised to inject the child with the covid-19 vaccine, which is unnecessary for the child, which does not prevent infection in the child and which may kill or damage the child. The demonic figure in the illustration represents the State and its looming form and shadow is squarely met and overcome by the child’s mother, bravely confronting the demon. The child, appropriately, is hiding behind its mother’s knee (but peering at the demon and marvelling at his mother’s courage). It is a hopeful, uplifting and instructive picture for mankind.

Determined and dogged political action has been pursued and used successfully to protect children from cruel working conditions and hours and from occupations such as that of the chimney sweep or coal miner, which regularly led to falls and severe injuries of children. In 19th century England, the evangelical Christian 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Cooper used his position and parliamentary influence to push a raft of reforms through the British parliament that succeeded in protecting children from long hours in the factory, banning entirely the employment of very young children and prohibiting the employment of children as chimney sweeps or in coal mines. Adults elected by other adults for high office must work for both adults and children.

In many parts of the world and increasingly in rich countries beset by a rapidly growing rich-poor divide, children are forced into homelessness and to begging on the street. This is an unconscionable affront on any decent society and any child seen begging or homeless must be protected from all the terrible conditions of poverty and abuse that have forced the child into the desolate, desperate and despairing life of begging and exposure to the elements. I wrote a poem about the street child sleeping rough in the cold, which appears in my book of poems published in the spring of 2021:

From “To A Nurse Friend Weeping - Poems by Francis Christian” page 10:

THE HOMELESS CHILD, SLEEPING ROUGH                                      

                  -“And he passed by on the other side” : Luke 10:31

I will not stand unmoved by squirming life and liberty

by mountains losing summits and chain-links

clasping willing arms outstretched.

I will not walk by huddling mass unhindered,

or trample tender fingers trembling, pale,

or step aside on the sweating sidewalk.

Pale fingers poking through the quivering shawl

lifeless, but for flickering eyelids flaying time

and fate and floundering fortune.

Numbed by icy blast of bitter winds

and numberless people passing by,

saving sorrow for tomorrow.

I cannot die the temperate death of feeling

and be afloat like driftwood

on a furious sea.

I dare not wish the nerves stay calm

or that the sails be switched off

in this intimate storm.

But stooping I may find redemption

from my own call to keep walking

past Jesus sleeping wild;

Pause in the midnight of this moment,

feel icy fingers clasping mine,

pulse of my pulse, soul of my very soul.

Since children do not have a voice, we who are called upon to protect them, must be their voice. 

There are several other rights of the child, of course, including the right of all children to an education, to clothing, shelter, and nutritious food and the right of every child to engage in play and sport. The living legend tennis player Novak Djokovic runs a foundation for the education of children. Another living legend, Roger Federer’s foundation for kids has impacted the lives of nearly 2 million children.

But none of these other rights are possible without the child’s foundational rights to life and protection from harm.  Once the child’s right to life and right to protection are secured, all these other essential rights can be addressed and can grow and flourish. 

We must remember that those who infringe upon the fundamental rights of the child are going against God Himself. For unto the child, Jesus says, “does the Kingdom of Heaven belong.”