RIGHTS-ASIA: Children’s Voices Not Being Heard Enough

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Sep 11 2001 (IPS) - Children in 17 countries across East Asia and the Pacific are aware about some of their rights — education, health care and food — yet they admit they know little about others, such as the right to free expression and information.

Such a view from some of Asia’s youngest citizens is one of the key findings emerging from a regional survey released ahead of a U.N. conference on the state of the world’s children, which starts on Sep. 19. The face-to-face interviews were conducted during the first half of this year among children aged 9 to 17 years.

Some 72 percent of the 10,073 children polled stated that they knew about their rights to education, health care and adequate food, in addition to play and love, according to the conclusions reached in the study, “Speaking Out! Voices of Children and Adolescents in East Asia and the Pacific.”

On the other hand, only 61 percent admitted knowing “something” about the right to free expression and only 50 percent said likewise to the right to information, adds this study carried out by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Equally significant is the children’s assessment of how much value is given to their views both in their homes and their communities.

“Freedom to ‘express what you think’ is reported by only two out of five children to have a ‘lot’ of importance in the family, while the values of not stealing, telling the truth, respecting and helping others is strongly promoted in 69 to 85 percent of households,” the survey reveals.

These findings have not only “opened a window of opportunity for us to better understand” the region’s children but they have helped “identify some major problem areas needing immediate attention,” wrote Mehr Khan, regional director of UNICEF’s East Asia and Pacific office, in the survey’s introduction.

“This sample is representative of some 300 million children in this age group across the region,” she added of the survey, which is the first-ever of its kind, given the breadth of views and opinions it gathered from the region’s youngest citizens.

The results also show that over a decade after the U.N. child rights convention was adopted “many of the region’s children are still unaware that they have fundamental human rights,” Khan stated.

Indeed, a major reason for this survey was to meet one of the rights guaranteed in that convention: to ensure that children’s views and voices are heard by society and that they be given a say when policies and decisions are made affecting their lives.

And in doing so, this pioneering effort has secured the children’s candid appraisal of a number of issues in countries as large as China to diminutive Singapore and in countries as culturally and politically different as Australia and Vietnam.

Describing their world at home, some 90 percent of the children reported having either a “very good” or “good” relationship with their mothers, while some 89 percent feel the same towards their fathers, with the exception of Cambodia, where only 76 percent of the children saw their fathers in positive light.

Despite such a happy relationship with their parents, some 40 percent of the children confessed that “their feelings and opinions are considered ‘not enough’ or ‘not at all’ when decisions that directly concern them are made in the home,” the survey points out.

This is high in Cambodia, with 74 percent admitting to being ignored, and 50 percent in China, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and South Korea.

School life ranks favourably, too, with 93 percent of the children surveyed being enrolled. However, a noticeable number spoke out about the difficulty they experienced discussing school-related problems with their teachers.

The number constituted 31 percent of those polled in South Korea, 21 percent in Vietnam and four percent in China.

Furthermore, the children gave community leaders and local decision-makers a failing grade. “Many respondents believe that their opinions on matters affecting children are ignored in the community,” says the study, pointing to the 46 percent who believe their opinions matter, the 39 percent who believe their opinions do not matter, and 15 percent who are not sure.

“These perceptions may reflect a wider sense of isolation in the community,” the study adds. “Perceptions of discrimination against ‘some children’ are least widespread in Myanmar (or Burma, where it is four percent) and most pervasive in Australia, Cambodia, Laos and Mongolia (in each, over 70 per cent).”

Questions about the children’s knowledge of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, revealed an inconsistent picture. While 69 percent of children between 14 to 17 years admitted knowing that unprotected sex could result in HIV, “only 20 per cent, however, are aware that children can also be infected before or during birth by an HIV-positive mother.”

Children from countries such as Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam revealed a high level of awareness about HIV transmission through unprotected sex, with a 90 percent average in most cases, while those from Burma, China and South Korea rated low in this area.

With regard to smoking and drinking, the picture varies from 39 percent saying that a friend or acquaintance their own age has tried smoking to 26 percent when it comes to alcohol.

“The reported observance of drinking (but not smoking) is higher among respondents from urban areas. It is highest in Indonesia, Mongolia and Papua New Guinea (59 to 66 per cent) and lowest in Lao PDR, Thailand and Cambodia (less than 20 percent),” according to the survey.

Furthermore, one in five children admit knowing of a friend or acquaintance addicted to cigarettes. This is most prevalent in Papua New Guinea and Mongolia.

These findings should prompt child rights advocates into action, says Khan, UNICEF’s regional head, particularly to shape plans geared towards child welfare.

“The children who took part in the survey spoke candidly, no doubt in the hope that what they had to tell us would somehow make a difference in their lives and the lives of millions of other children in this region,” she adds.

RIGHTS-ASIA: Children’s Voices Not Being Heard Enough

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Sep 11 2001 (IPS) - Children in 17 countries across East Asia and the Pacific are aware about some of their rights — education, health care and food — yet they admit they know little about others, such as the right to free expression and information.
(more…)