Say Yes, Winter 2003: For Every Child …

UNICEF’s report on The State of The World’s Children, 2003 was launched in Ankara on the 16th of December. The United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan writes that the focus of this year’s report, child participation, is intended to remind adults of their obligation to elicit and consider the views of children and young people when decisions are being made that affect their lives.

In the United Nations Millennium Declaration, world leaders reaffirmed their shared duty to all the world’s people, especially the most vulnerable and, in particular, the children of the world, to whom the future belongs. They pledged to a set of specific goals, six out of eight of which are directly concerned with children. In the coming years, these Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will focus collective efforts to undertake the challenges of poverty reduction and sustainable development.

Closing the United Nations Special Session on Children (UNSSC) in May, 2002, world leaders set themselves an additional agenda under the title of A World Fit for Children with four goals that are specifically concerned with ensuring the rights of every child. These four goals viewed together with the MDGs promise an interdependent framework for action where the interests of children are expected to be at the heart of every successful development agenda.

Health

Clearly families, local governments, civil society and the private sector share the responsibility to ensure that the full participation of children begins by giving them the best possible start in life. National governments must provide the leadership and resources necessary to support local initiatives in favour of children.

The children themselves can be pro-active in health programmes such as immunisation campaigns where a thorough coverage of large populations is essential. They can disseminate information and advice on healthcare and disease prevention. In many developing countries, the assistance of children in this respect has proven to be invaluable.

Education

Schools are vital to the socialisation of children. These are the places where children learn important skills and gain knowledge of the world and are impressed by society’s future expectations of them as citizens. All too often this has meant little more than the enforcement of blind obedience. Increasingly, schools are developing as places where children are properly prepared for citizenship by learning how to think critically, to understand their rights and to be responsible to themselves and others.

Girls’ education is a crucial issue in many parts of the world where, owing to a complex range of short-sighted social and economic factors, women and girls are disadvantaged in favour of boys and men. The reality is that poorly educated girls become poorly prepared mothers and, since lack of education can severely impair future opportunities, the role of a homemaker and mother is all that is left to such girls -- a vicious circle. The social and economic arguments for educating girls are not so much arguments as imperatives since the participation of today’s women and the women of the future extends well beyond competent motherhood.

UNICEF Turkey vigorously promotes the necessity of giving every girl in this country a quality education.

Values of peace and democracy can also be promoted through play and recreation. Sports provide children with their own physical and emotional space, teaching valuable social skills of conflict resolution, understanding opponents and how to win and lose with respect for others. Sports can also be used to engage the children and adults of a community in a common development project.

Equality

The argument that so many adults, especially women are denied the opportunity to participate fully in society, let alone children, does not detract from the reality that children are the future and we have a responsibility to listen to them.

Writing of Governments’ declared commitment to building A World Fit for Children, Kofi Annan stresses that:

We will achieve this only if Governments fulfil their promise that the voices of children and young people will be heard loud and clear; if we ensure the full participation of children in the work to build a better future.

Careful consultation of children remains something of a rare commodity requiring sensitivity on the part of adults. It is relatively easy to listen to an adolescent (and often difficult not to) but the insights of even very young children can be valuable to adult perceptions which are so often stultified by experience.

Wisdom is in your mind -- not in your age

Turkish proverb

Children need their own forums which they can use to learn from their peers, build skills, identify their priorities and disseminate their views. When their views are sensitively solicited and understood, they can be a forceful medium for change.

Protection

We can protect our children in the wrong way. The refusal to listen to children, to give them a proper hearing, stems from deep-seated, very human, traits of control and authority. As parents and teachers, it is a simple matter to err in our judgement on their behalf because we wish to protect our children from making mistakes.

Children have the right to make mistakes also, for how else will they learn to make their own creative decisions about life?

It is not such a simple matter to err on the side of more sinister human prejudices such as greed and the desire for power: there is no justification for the exploitation of children as cheap labour, more often than not under dangerous conditions; there is no excuse for engaging in armed conflict without regard for the damage wrought upon innocent lives and to engage children in such conflict or to exploit them for sexual purposes is the deplorable antithesis of the concept of participation which UNICEF and it’s partners are seeking to promote.

Advance Humanity

Change begins in the present and extends to the future, be that another minute from now or generations ahead in the next century, and the very growth and development of our children is inextricably bound to that change.

The carefully phrased wisdom of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has transformed the world we share and there is no turning back. Daily, more children open their eyes and their minds to an understanding of their rights and more of us who live and work with them are learning how to respect those rights. However, for millions of children who are still caught in the midst of armed conflict, sexual slavery or hazardous labour, there remains much to be done in building a world fit enough for them to live in.

Speaking in November, 2001, Kofi Annan reminded us:

One of the greatest challenges to humankind in the new century will be the struggle to make the practice of democracy truly universal.

You can read the full text of The State of the World’s Children 2003 online or order the printed version of The State of the World’s Children 2003 from UNICEF headquarters.

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