Cherishing Children’s Rights

Speech by Ray Dooley

Thank you very much, and thanks for the opportunity to help kick off this important conference.

My name is Ray Dooley and I’m with the Children’s Rights Alliance.  We are an umbrella group of 74 Irish non-governmental organisations concerned with the rights and welfare of children.  Our primary purpose is to secure the full implementation in Ireland of the principles and provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

This evening I’d like to address myself to three topics, each of which has some relevance to the mission and aims of Educate Together and, I hope, some bearing on the work you do on a day-to-day basis.

First, I’ll discuss the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the challenge of making children’s rights real.  Second, I’ll talk a bit about the social and economic rights of children, particularly those living in poverty or social exclusion.  Finally, I’ll make some very brief comments on the right of children to live in a society that values and respects diversity and provides, to all children, equal protection under the law. 

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as many of you are aware, is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history. It was adopted by the United Nations in 1990 and ratified by Ireland without reservation in 1992.  When we talk about children’s rights, we’re usually talking about the rights that are recognised in the UN Convention.

The Convention identifies and asserts the civil, political, social, cultural and economic rights of all persons below the age of 18.  Four basic principles inform the Convention:

• the right of all children to survival and to the full development of their human capacities
• the obligation to make the best interests of the child a primary consideration in decisions and actions affecting children
• the right of children to be heard in matters relating to them
• the right of all children to enjoy all of the Convention’s rights without discrimination

I think it’s worth noting that each of these principles is reflected in the core values of Educate Together.  Your ethos of child centredness, democracy and diversity and your absolute devotion to the developmental rights of children are the reasons why Educate Together is truly a rights-based organisation.

The Convention provides an internationally agreed framework of minimum standards necessary for the well-being of the child.  Remarkable in its scope, the Convention sets forth a detailed list of children’s rights including the right of all children to an adequate standard of living, to education, to the best attainable health care, to protection from all forms of abuse, neglect and exploitation, including sexual and economic, and to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.  The Convention also recognises the right to play and recreation, to a family life and to the development of children to their full human potential.  Other articles of the Convention outline the rights of children in specific situations, such as children with disabilities, children who are refugees or asylum seekers, and children of minority groups.

Rights bring obligations

The Convention also establishes the obligation of ratifying States to uphold and enforce all the stipulated rights, and to take all steps necessary to achieve that end.

That’s why the Convention matters.

Each right of the child is matched by a duty, by an obligation assumed by the State to take action to ensure that the right is not merely theoretical or aspirational, but is made real in the life of the child.  That might mean an action to protect or to provide or to defend or to achieve, but instead of a discretionary action, it is a duty.  Rights confer obligations.  That’s what distinguishes them from needs or acts of charity.

The notion of human rights, and especially of children’s rights, often carries with it connotations of liberty and new freedoms and perhaps permissiveness and a certain abandonment of traditional ways and values.  But there are important aspects of children’s human rights that are about requirements and duties and obligations, that embrace certain values unequivocally, that are morally absolutist, not relativist.  Children’s rights are more about making rules than breaking rules.  These aspects, however, get little attention, in part because the obligations that flow from rights are, in the real world we live in, observed far more in the breach than they are in practise.

Which raises the critical questions, do children’s rights and the UN Convention really matter, or is it just talk?  Can you actually make rights real?

Well, it’s safe to say that no UN peacekeeping force is on the verge of being deployed to enforce the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.  If anything there’s a good chance we’re about to see the UN sanction a war that humanitarian organisations say will cause the deaths of thousands and, over time, perhaps hundreds of thousands of children because of current levels of malnutrition and the dependence of more than six million children on the central Iraqi government for their food supply.  In my view, that looks like a massive violation of children’s rights about to happen.

But that doesn’t mean that children’s rights don’t matter, or are just meaningless promises.  It means, among other things, that children’s rights don’t carry, at this point in human history, sufficient weight to deter governments from pursuing policies they have adopted because of other concerns and considerations.

There are a number of reasons why this is true, including a lack of understanding of children’s rights, low public awareness of their existence and lack of demand that they be acted upon.  The relative political powerlessness of children and young people is certainly a major factor. Outright opposition from the very governments that have ratified the Convention cannot be ignored.

There are also two factors that I believe are particularly important.

The first is cost and redistributive implications, which I’ll get to later, and the second is enforceability.

Enforceability

Children’s rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are seen, from the perspective of most countries, as being primarily matters of international law.  In the case of the United States and Somalia, the only nations that have refused to ratify the Convention (although Somalia has apparently changed its position), the Convention has no legal standing at all.  In many other countries, including Ireland, the national constitution requires international treaties to be incorporated, not merely ratified, before they become domestic law.

Keeping children’s rights out of Irish domestic law is apparently a matter of some importance to the current Irish Government, based on recent developments in Europe.  Earlier this month, you might remember, the European Convention published the first sixteen articles of a draft European Constitution.  Included in Article 3, entitled Objectives of the Union, was the phrase “protection of children’s rights” – an historic step forward for children’s rights advocates.  The Irish Government, however, has tabled an amendment striking reference to children’s rights and substituting language regarding the “universality and indivisibility of human rights”, concepts that have long been recognised by the European Union.  Children’s rights, however, are invisible in European law despite years of efforts by children’s rights campaigners to secure some legal recognition.

Why did the Irish Government want the reference removed?  My guess, and I may be wrong, is that they didn’t want children’s rights to become part of the Irish Constitution via a constitutional amendment incorporating the next European treaty.  Put simply, they wanted to avoid giving it any legal force beyond what it already enjoys – which is not a lot.

Currently, the courts are denied any role in vindicating children’s rights as set forth in the Convention, unless they appear elsewhere in the Irish Constitution or in domestic law.

So where does one go to enforce implementation of Convention rights?

Committee on the Rights of the Child

While no international enforcement agency exists, there is a monitoring and performance review mechanism which has made major contributions to making the Convention a reality in the lives of children around the world, including here in Ireland.  Its powers derive from the desire of states to avoid the political embarrassment of being deemed, following a formal UN review, of violating the basic human rights of children.

In ratifying the Convention, countries agree to submit performance reports periodically to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and to attend hearings called by the Committee to review progress in implementing the Convention.  Such reports are to be filed two years after initial ratification and every five years thereafter.

The Convention and the Committee also provide for alternative reports on country performance to be submitted by non-governmental organisations concerned with the rights and welfare of children.

When the Children’s Rights Alliance was established in 1995, its member organisations decided that the most effective way it could use its resources to promote improvements in policies and services for children in Ireland would be through involvement in the process of reporting to the Committee on the Rights of the Child on Ireland’s progress towards fulfilling its obligations under the Convention.

In 1996-1997, the Alliance conducted a year-long consultation with its member organisations and reviewed all relevant data and information it could obtain in relation to children’s rights and Ireland’s performance in meeting its Convention obligations.  The information and statistical review covered a multitude of topics, including:

• Child poverty
• Infant mortality
• Homelessness
• Children in care
• Health care waiting lists
• Educational attainment
• Play and recreation facilities
• Adoption
• Juvenile justice
• Data collection
• Child labour
• Child policy development and coordination
• Facilities and services for Traveller children, and
• Disability

The Alliance then made its formal submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child.  The submission was the Alliance’s performance-based assessment of the extent to which Irish practice, policy and law complied with the principles and provisions of the Convention.  The submission also identified the measures the Alliance considered necessary to ensure compliance.

On the basis of this submission, the Alliance was invited to make a presentation to the Committee. The Alliance’s presentation drew particular attention to the need for a strong and independent Office of Ombudsman for Children; for greater awareness of children’s rights; for urgent attention to the rights and needs of Traveller children and children from other cultural, ethnic and racial minorities; for action on children’s educational, health care, and housing rights; for badly needed play and recreational opportunities; for a national coordinating mechanism for policy on children and additional actions to be taken without delay to eliminate child poverty.

Committee’s Concluding Observations

Following the January 1998 hearing on Ireland’s record, the Committee published its Concluding Observations.

The Committee included in its findings and recommendations all of the key issues and concerns raised by the Alliance.

The Committee recommended that Ireland “adopt a comprehensive National Strategy for Children, incorporating the principles and provisions of the Convention”; establish an Office of Ombudsman for Children, intensify efforts to eliminate child poverty, promote awareness of children’s rights and incorporate the provisions of the Convention into the Irish Constitution and domestic law.

The Committee also expressed concerns about the lack of a national policy to ensure the rights of children with disabilities; the high rate of early school leaving; the lack of adequate services addressing the mental health needs of children; the low age of criminal responsibility; unaddressed educational disadvantage; the treatment of children deprived of their liberty; the high rate of teenage suicide; the lack of adequate training of personnel in children’s rights; and the inadequacy of data monitored by the Irish Government in relation to indicators of child well-being.

Following the publication and the ensuing media coverage of the Committee’s findings and recommendations, the Alliance convened a national conference on the Committee’s Concluding Observations.  At that conference and in its aftermath, the Irish Government reversed its positions on the Ombudsman and the National Children’s Strategy and proceeded to adopt, at least at the level of policy, most of the key recommendations of the Committee and the Alliance.

National Children’s Strategy

The subsequent National Children’s Strategy, launched at the end of 2000, outlines a ten-year plan of action to be taken to “progress the implementation of the Convention”, including the following promises:

“Children will be provided with the financial supports necessary to eliminate child poverty.”

Child Benefit will be increased over the next three years.

Targeted support will be provided to single-parent families.

“Children will have access to accommodation appropriate to their needs.”

A plan for addressing youth homelessness will be adopted and fast-tracked.

Every child will be provided “with an education suitable to their needs.”

1,100 primary and 1,400 post-primary teaching posts will be added by 2002 and the £194 million plan to tackle educational disadvantage will be implemented.

Initiatives to combat early school leaving will be extended

A National Educational Psychological Service will be provided to all schools

Measures will be taken “to ensure that children have the necessary numeracy and literacy skills when leaving school”.

“Early education and child development programmes will be developed to meet the needs of all children.

County and City childcare committees will be established

• “Children with a disability will be entitled to the services they need to reach their full potential.”
• Supports will be developed to enable children with disabilities to obtain a quality education.
• Child Impact Statements will be required of government departments prior to Government decisions.
• A National Play and Recreation Policy will be developed.
• “Children will be educated…to value social and cultural diversity so that all children including Travellers and other marginalised groups achieve their full potential.”
• The Irish Social Services Inspectorate will be expanded; physical and environmental improvements to children’s homes will be made.  Foster care will be expanded and legislation regarding the protection of children in adoption will be introduced.  A “major review of the residential services…will now be undertaken.”
• “Children will be safeguarded to enjoy their childhood free from all forms of abuse and exploitation.”  The Government will develop a National Action Plan to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children; and family support services aimed at the prevention and early identification of child neglect, abuse and exploitation will be expanded.
• “Children will have a voice in all matters that affect them”
• An Office of Ombudsman for Children will be established
• A Cabinet Sub-Committee will be formed and a National Children’s Office will be established.
• A National Children’s Advisory Council will be convened.
• Child well-being indicators will be created.
• A National Longitudinal Study will be established to identify the factors that help or hinder children’s development and a National Children’s Research Dissemination Unit will be formed.

The list goes on. Much of it is aspirational, and many of the commitments are not new.  It is, however, a comprehensive national children’s plan that would not have been put into place were it not for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Committee’s review of Ireland’s performance.

Child poverty

This brings us to the second obstacle to implementation of children’s rights – the cost and redistributive implications of enforcing the social and economic rights of children – and to the second topic I wanted to discuss, child poverty.

For the past several years, the Children’s Rights Alliance has worked in partnership with a group of national NGOs in the Open Your Eyes to Child Poverty Initiative.  We’ve worked to increase public awareness of child poverty and to influence public policymaking to secure its reduction and eventual elimination.

Earlier this month we reconstituted ourselves as the End Child Poverty Coalition.  Our focus now is to get the Government to honour its commitment to eliminate child poverty and to do so by the Government’s target date of 2007.

The member organisations of the Coalition are Barnardos, Children's Rights Alliance, Focus Ireland, National Youth Council of Ireland, Pavee Point, People with Disabilities in Ireland and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

The Coalition takes a children’s rights-based approach to the issue of child poverty.  We call for an end to child poverty on the grounds that every child has a right to an adequate standard of living; a right to the material resources necessary to allow for the full development of the child’s human potential; and a right not to live in poverty.

The Government commitment, which links back to the National Children’s Strategy promise, was adopted last year in the revised National Anti-Poverty Strategy and it commits to reducing the number of children in consistent poverty to below 2% by 2007, and ‘if possible’ to eliminating child poverty completely by that date. Related commitments are made to increase targeted child income support during that period to a level that would take children out of poverty.  This commitment has been reaffirmed in the proposed social partnership successor agreement.

So where do we stand today in terms of child poverty in Ireland?

Roughly 90,000 children are living in what’s called “consistent poverty”.  That means that more than 8% of Irish children are living in households with incomes below 60% of the national average AND are experiencing basic deprivation.

By deprivation we mean the enforced lack of one of eight basic necessities of living.  The indicators include the following:

• going without heating due to lack of money;
• going without a substantial meal one day in the last two weeks;
• going seriously into debt or depending  on charity to meet very basic living expenses

The enforced lack of

• new, not second hand clothes;
• two pairs of strong shoes;
• a warm waterproof overcoat;
• a roast or equivalent once a week;
• a meal with meat, fish or chicken every second day.

Those are the indicators of consistent poverty.  They are indicative of conditions faced by approximately 90,000 children in Ireland today.

That’s down from levels of 5 or 10 years ago, but it’s still the reality for more than one out of twelve Irish children, even after years of unprecedented prosperity and economic growth.

Roughly 25% of Irish children experience what we call ‘relative income’ poverty – meaning they live in households with disposable incomes less than half of the national average.  More than 250,000 children find themselves living in these circumstances, a percentage and number that has remained unchanged during the period of economic boom. Children continue to be at a more than 30% greater risk of experiencing poverty than adults.

Poverty among children also manifests itself across a range of needs that are linked to but go beyond household income.  Inadequate housing and youth homelessness; unequal access to health care; and educational disadvantage are among the key elements describing the multi-dimensional reality of child poverty.

Despite the boom, homelessness in Ireland has doubled since 1996, going from 2,500 people to over 6,000 by 2002. More than one-third of homeless people are under the age of 18 and, in Dublin alone, there are 600 homeless children under the age of 5. Waiting lists for social housing have climbed by roughly 25% over the past 3 years to nearly 50,000 people, including tens of thousands of children.

The reality of child poverty today was highlighted by the recently published study of a group of low-income families, 'Against all Odds: Family Life on a Low Income in Ireland'.  The study showed that, with an average weekly income of 124 euro per adult and 50 euro per child, almost half of the families were struggling with debt. Three-quarters of them had major health problems and some of the children were being bullied because the clothes they wore.  Half of the Dublin families were living in fear.

According to the report on life in the shadow of the Celtic Tiger economy, "If anything, life may be more difficult for some nowadays, because they live alongside people who have done well and they are part of a society where lifestyle and materialistic values have wide appeal."

One in four of the children surveyed were bullied at school, with children's clothing needs fuelled by a desire to fit in with their peers. Wearing the "right" clothes emerged as a crucial factor in being accepted.

The report highlighted the case of a 14-year-old girl who had been bullied by five classmates for two years. Her ordeal culminated in her being hospitalised after being kicked unconscious and jeered about her runners, her house and her father.

Realising children’s economic and social rights

Given this reality, what needs to be done to reach the goal of ending child poverty by 2007?

First, we need to say what must not be done:  We must not have any more budgets like Budget 2003 – if we are at all serious about ending poverty among children.

This last Budget consisted of a series of broken promises to children.

Promises to extend the Medical Card to roughly 200,00 low-income families, with an emphasis on children, were not kept.

Commitments to implement the programme of Child Benefit increases were not met.

Promises to take the first steps to implement the Government plan to end child poverty by increasing child income support for the neediest families were simply ignored

Commitments to make urgently needed repairs and replacements of school facilities were broken.

Promises to cut the Corporation Tax rate, however – at a cost of 300 million euro – were kept.  Promises to fully fund the Special Savings Incentive Scheme, which provides no benefits to those living in deep poverty, were kept, even though no one can say whether the cost will be 500, 600 or more than 700 million euro per year to an Exchequer that somehow cannot afford another 10 or 20 euro per week to give to 90,000 children living in poverty.

We need to put children first in the next Budget, not last.  The next budget must be used to enable the State to honour rather than evade its obligations to respect socio-economic rights and to narrow instead of widen economic inequality.

We need to put children first in line for resources, not at the end of the line waiting to get what might be left over after every other claim has been addressed.

But it’s not just a question of additional resources.  We need a specific action plan to be adopted and implemented over a five-year timeline between now and 2007 if we’re going to have any hope of getting the job done.

It means action on income adequacy, health, housing and education.  It means providing accommodation to the more than 3000 Traveller children living on the roadside without adequate facilities.  It means recognising and ending the obscene link between disability and poverty.  You would think that those with disabilities would be the last group we would allow to face the enormous challenges of coping with life in poverty, but you would be wrong.  It means breaking the link between children’s health and the wealth of their parents, a link that is clearly the most powerful non-medical determinant of health outcomes and life expectancy in Ireland.

It means making sure that no child experiences conditions like those described in the indicators of deprivation I mentioned earlier.

The next steps include providing the promised child income support as quickly as possible, including a minimum social-welfare payment of 150 euro per week; implementation of the Child Benefit programme; and an end to the freezing of the Child Dependant Allowance, or its replacement with some form of assistance that puts additional money into the low-income households with children.

It means accelerating, not reducing or abandoning, our efforts in health, education and housing to stop the routine and systematic violation of children's rights. 

The development of child well-being indicators, promised in the National Children’s Strategy and reiterated in the NAPS Review, is an important commitment that needs to be acted on without further delay. Children growing up in a society in which material inequality is growing, even if basic deprivation is declining, experience the destructive effects of social exclusion in part because they are vulnerable to being stigmatised and humiliated due to their relative poverty. Well-being indicators could identify the damage done to children’s lives by inequality and enable us to target resources and services accordingly and to take action to make ours a more equal society.

The National Children’s Strategy, which has the potential to secure unprecedented improvements in the lives of children, must be given the backing and support required to allow its full implementation. 

We also need to seriously address educational disadvantage if we are to break the cycle of child poverty.  Key steps include

• Developing and implementing universal pre-school provision on a phased basis prioritising children experiencing disadvantage.
• Repairing and replacing dilapidated and inadequate school buildings.
• Expanding in-education supports for children including breakfast clubs, homework clubs and school lunch programmes.
• Implementing and adequately resourcing the Education Welfare Act.
• Developing enhanced remedial services at pre-school, primary and post-primary levels.
• Increasing the back-to-school footwear and clothing allowance to bring it into line with actual costs.
• Enhancing third-level maintenance grants for students from families on social welfare.
• Implementing the commitments related to education in the National Children’s Strategy and the Programme for Government.

Many of these actions will be costly, but we need to recognise that they must be taken if we are to fulfil our commitments and meet our obligations to respect the social and economic rights of children.

If we have the funds to pay for discretionary programmes and services, then surely we have the resources to protect the rights of our most vulnerable children.

But this may be the most difficult hurdle of all for children’s rights – facing up to the fact that it won’t be free, that it will cost money and that it will require some measure of wealth redistribution.

Where does this leave us?

The considerable gap (some would say chasm) between theory and reality when it comes to respecting and exercising children’s rights in Ireland remains a central feature of the political landscape in Ireland. 

But we have a choice: we can allow the gap between promise and performance to widen, or we can rise to the challenge, deploy the assets available to us and fulfil the social and economic rights of children and young people in Ireland.  We can incorporate the Convention into Irish law. We can adopt an all-island Charter of Rights, as provided for in the Good Friday Agreement, that includes children’s rights and in doing so makes them the law of the land.

The tools are available, the goals are within reach, and the choices are ours.

Diversity and racism

Before concluding, I want to say a few words about respecting diversity, providing equal protection under the law and honouring the rights of all children equally.

The Tanaiste gave a speech a couple of years ago saying that in terms of policymaking and building a modern economy and society, Ireland should move more in the direction of Boston than Berlin.

Having spent much of the past thirty years in Boston, I know that in at least one important respect the experience of that city should be very instructive to Ireland, which I believe stands at a crossroads in relation to whether or not it will embrace racism or diversity.

For most of its history, Boston was known as a centre of liberal and progressive thinking.  Movements calling for independence from England, the abolition of slavery, the development of free and equal public education and opposition to the Vietnam War had a home in Boston.  During the 1970s, however, the court-ordered racial integration of the public schools involving the busing of schoolchildren exposed an underlying racism and ignited a period of racial strife and violence that lasted for more than a decade.  Boston, once the City on a Hill, became an international symbol of intolerance featuring scenes not dissimilar from what occurred in North Belfast at the Holy Cross school two years ago.

It took many years and the efforts of thousands of people to get past that period and to restore a climate of racial tolerance, harmony and mutual respect.

Much of the work was done by people just like yourselves, on the ground, day in and day out, teaching respect for diversity and standing up for equality and equal rights.

I can say without any hesitation, however, that that work would have been for naught and Boston would today be mired in racial bigotry and hatred were it not for the fact that the political leadership in the 1980’s made it absolutely clear, over and over and over again, that discrimination, racial stereotyping and racial violence were illegal and would not be tolerated.

Those in public life who chose to play the race card were challenged and effectively isolated.

By the mid 1980’s, the word had gone out that one rule would apply to all and that no resources would be spared and nothing less than the highest priority be given to the effort to make Boston an open city welcoming to all and proud of its racial diversity.

Over the last ten days, I saw none of that behaviour in evidence and none of those lessons learned in response to the comments made by the Longford judge.

The public heard a judge suggest the possibility that shopping centres might impose a race-based ban, that they might begin refusing entrance to people based on the colour of their skin. At no point did the people hear any public official say that such a ban would be grossly illegal or that it would be prohibited.

The subsequent half-hearted public apology for giving offence only sent the message that you need to be careful about the words you use, and not about their meaning.

But most importantly, the public heard a deafening silence from the highest quarters.

Let me tell you, that approach just will not work.  If we are to build a society that values diversity and respects the rights of all and provides our children a community that takes pride in its diversity, the political leadership has to provide leadership and repeatedly make clear what will and will not be tolerated.

As front-line workers trying to build that type of community, you need and deserve the support of the Government.  Let’s hope you get it.