Workshop 3
3.30 p.m.Granting freedom to childhood
Even a perfunctory, though dramatic list of these crimes simply increases our embarrassment and difficulty in facing up to the grim fate of our global civilisation, which, amidst grandiose external progress, allows these monsters to creep out from the deepest dens of the soul.
Our inner sense of rebellion still reminds us of something which was once said in reaction to the ever-increasing intensity of evil in history: “Behold - this, then, is our world”.
But, if this is our world, and if this is not even the complete picture of the evil it embodies, what can we do with our sense of outrage, apart from living with it - disgusted, horrified, but not committed? We are forced, in fact, to talk about the third of the great plagues of childhood, perhaps the most repugnant and most criminal of those addressed in this conference.
This third plague itself takes on three forms, - a three-headed monster. With its first head, it drives children into forced labour in the fields, in the mines, in the waste tips and on the streets, and wherever the demons misery and poverty lure them into the clutches of those who use and abuse them.
With its second head, it forces children to take up arms; it turns them into soldiers in the fratricidal slaughter-house training schools of Uganda, Congo, Rwanda, Myanmar, Ivory Coast, Colombia, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, New Guinea, etc.
What is more, Amnesty International informs us that currently some 60 countries, including - amazingly - Australia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, still legally authorise the recruitment of 16- and 17-year-olds.
With its third head - truly, the most unremittingly brutal of the three - this monster drives children into sexual servitude. And here, too, a plentiful ration of statistics may be useful to bring us face to face with the stark reality of this hideous trade, prompting us to repeat once again: “Behold – this, then, is our world”. UNICEF estimates that one million children and adolescents a year are initiated into the sex trade.
This colossus, in all its immeasurable horror, places the dark side of Man squarely at the heart of the problem. But, while it may be difficult to hunt down this monster in its dark inner lairs, it can be pursued out in the open when it ventures abroad to ply its ghastly trade: from the domestic hearth to those countries that are synonymous with the trafficking of children.
However powerful the nature of this evil may appear and may actually be, there can be no doubt that the Earth, in the form of some human beings, is full of love. We ignore at our peril the profound sense of beauty and trust that inspires the work of these people who are full of love and whose belief in what they are doing sustains them in their endeavours and creates the conditions for other actions of greater and more general scope. Even a single episode is never just an episode.
Chairperson
Jaap E. Doek
(Netherlands) Chairperson since May 2001 of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and Professor of Law at the Vrije University in Amsterdam (Family and Juvenile Law). He has been founding member of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect and was involved in the creation of Defence for Children International. He published numerous books and articles on various topics in the area of children’s rights and family law.
Panel
Craig Kielburger
(Canada) An accomplished children’s rights advocate, he is the founder, with his brother Marc, of Free The Children, the world’s largest network of children helping children to free themselves from poverty and exploitation. Since 1995, the organisation has made possible the building of hundreds of schools and the collection of millions of dollars worth of medicines and medical equipment for distribution in the Third World. The underlying principle of the movement is that young people must be able to have their say about their own future.
Jean-Pierre Langellier
(Belgium) A Correspondent for Le Monde in the UK and Ireland. He joined Le Monde in 1976 as a reporter on African Affairs and was correspondent in Jerusalem from 1983-1987. He is also Adviser to the EU Commission for the Daphné programme (concerned with violence against women and children). He has published a number of books on international affairs and is on the board of the Foreign Press Association in London.
Juan Miguel Petit
(Uruguay) A lawyer, journalist and social scientist, Jean Petit is a UN Human Rights Commission’s Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. He was a member of the Board of the National Child Institute of Uruguay (1985-1990) and has been involved in a variety of NGO programmes for children, including assistance to street children. During the military dictatorship in Uruguay (1973-1985), he worked as a journalist and editor of opposition publications. Currently, he is technical coordinator of the National Rehabilitation Centre for the education and social reintegration of young
Frans Röselaers
(Switzerland) Member of the editorial board of the UN Report on Violence against Children and former Director of ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour. According to Röselaers the end of child labour may be in reach, but “where under-age children are withdrawn from the formal workplace, they often end up in more hazardous informal situations. This happens if there are no provisions in place to redirect the children’s lives.”
Kailash Satyarthi
(India) India’s lodestar for the abolition of child labour. He has saved thousands of lives and has helped thousands of children escape slavery by conducting raids on factories and communities where children were held as bonded workers. In 1989 he founded the South Asian Coalition Against Child (SACCS) to focus international attention on the deep injustices perpetuated against children. In 1991, he started Mukti Ashram, a transition centre where newly freed children are taught basic skills, and in 1998 he organized the Global March Against Child Labour, a movement aimed at mobilising worldwide efforts to protect and promote the rights of all children.