Children and their rights

Hopefully when we’re through yet another episode of heightened public and political concern about the well-being of our children, T&T can buckle down and get really serious about the things that need to be done to make life better for this vulnerable group of humans. We have not been doing so!

The issue’s command of the news agenda will, as is customary, vigorously persist then wane until another dramatic development involving a child occurs. In the interim it will be back to official sloth, political convenience, and diminished attention by some who currently lead cacophonies of concern.

Though there is room for scrupulous criticism, what we are facing today is not all about the filing and forgetting of the 1997 Task Force Report (Ramesh Deosaran reminded everybody about it in the Senate in 2002, by the way) or the December 2021 report on child abuse at children’s homes.

It is not even about a lack of systemic all-of-government support for an under-resourced, legislatively strapped Children’s Authority which is just one element of a national child protection system involving a host of other agencies.

Getting to the bottom of all this would strike at the core of some deeply held beliefs and longstanding practices. Some inconvenient truths about how we run this place.

Among its manifestations is that there is no overwhelming preoccupation by the political class with any revolutionary change in official attitudes toward the protection of our children.

No matter what they try to say now, politicians past and present, have not done their best, however belated the expressions of regret. Have not prioritised. Have not clung to the basic principles of the rights of children. It’s not the only area in which we ritualistically drop the ball, but one of the most important ones.

Even so, it would not be fair to declare all politicians evil, cruel or indifferent to the cause. To do so would be to cast into the fire generations of them. They also do not land from other planets. They were born, grew up and live among us.

There is no doubt about general societal concern and care. Though there is the net negative impact of some social habits and beliefs (those associated with corporal punishment and religious coercion for example) by and large, we are not a population of callous, uncaring people when it comes to children.

I think the vast majority of private citizens would do virtually anything to secure the well-being of their children. Civil society elements have always been there to add support and to initiate projects of their own spanning a variety of needs such as health, education and learning, counselling and psychological support, recreation, and a host of other goods and services.

So, I don’t necessarily agree that we have ALL been complicit in this sorry state of affairs. However, there is the fact that children and their rights are not always expressed as a priority across a multiplicity of disciplines and concerns.

Some of us in the media have not been asleep on this. Between 2015 and 2016, a team of regional journalists collaborated with UNICEF, the CBU and the ACM in the publication of Our Children, Our Media – A Guide for Caribbean Practitioners which was superbly edited by Barbadian journalist, Julius Gittens.

This guide focuses extensively on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and its meaning for the practice of responsible journalism.

It was not an encounter of a first or second or third kind for journalists. And while it is true that there has been journalistic malpractice along the way there is now, by and large, greater awareness of special obligations.

In the preface of Our Children, though, a note from UNICEF claims that as many as 20% - 40% of children of the Eastern Caribbean are subjected to sexual abuse.

It continues: “After the slogans wear away from memory, the public service announcements stop running or the money for the next campaign moves on to another pressing priority, will a problem that touches at least one-fifth of the lives of those who watch, read and listen to our news reports and programmes simply go away?”

I add: What happens to this now that the flooding season has begun? I plan to post a reminder. People seem to forget very easily.