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RIGHTS: Drawing Up a World Map of Violence Against Children

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 31 2005 (IPS) - Violence against children and adolescents, often meted out by their own parents, is an all-too-common problem around the globe. Corporal punishment, sexual abuse and the exploitation of minors through child labour are just some of the practices that are widespread but often invisible.

To draw attention to this tragedy that plagues all regions of the world, the United Nations commissioned a global Study on Violence Against Children, based on consultations with governments, social organisations in each country, and children.

Almost 100 countries, including 18 in Latin America, have already responded to the consultations through questionnaires. Some 2,000 Latin American children participated through consultations coordinated by Save the Children, World Vision, Defence for Children International and other organisations.

The study will be presented next year to the U.N. General Assembly once the round of consultations currently behind carried out in nine regions is completed.

Leading the study is independent expert Professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro from Brazil, who initiated the second round of consultations in Latin America Monday in Buenos Aires.

”This is an emergency. We don’t want to draw up a report for the future generations. We need to change violent practices against children now, not wait until they are adults,” Pinheiro told an auditorium of government officials and experts from 17 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

In an interview with IPS, Pinheiro explained that the aim is not to produce ”a catalogue of horror,” but to identify good preventive practices, and design recommendations for public policies aimed at eradicating violence against children.

Pinheiro said one common problem that occurs in rich as well as poor countries is corporal punishment, which takes place in the home with the consent of the state.

”Many parents do not know any other way to deal with disciplinary problems, and children assume that being hit or beaten is normal,” he said.

He also criticised the fact that in some industrialised countries, the justice system considers the occasional spanking a normal part of child-rearing.

In Latin America, violence against children also takes on specific characteristics depending on the local culture. ”In northeastern Brazil, there are 300,000 girls working as domestics without any legal protection, and almost always with the complicity of their families, who find these jobs for them,” said Pinheiro.

Another more sinister and silent form of violence against children and adolescents is their forced introduction into prostitution and pornography rings.

Pinheiro underlined the severe marginalisation suffered by many African-American, indigenous and disabled children and teenagers, who suffer ”multiple discrimination” due to their age, ethnic origins, socioeconomic position and health problems.

He expressed special concern over the mistreatment of minors who come into conflict with the law in many countries in this region. ”There are minors held in custody in appalling conditions, treated as adults, as criminals, and sentenced to prison, even life in prison,” he said.

But Pinheiro praised the willingness of governments in the region to recognise the faults and shortcomings of current practices for dealing with ”institutionalised” children, and their desire to correct them.

He also lauded the enthusiasm of non-governmental organisations and judicial functionaries who make a personal effort to fight on behalf of the rights of minors who suffer beatings, mistreatment and even torture in detention centres, or who are subjected to abuse by members of the security forces who are supposed to protect them.

One of the experiences that most moved Pinheiro, he said, was one that he observed in Mali, where elderly women care for children who are born to single mothers and are deemed potential victims of infanticide. ”These women don’t stop to conceptualise about what they are doing, they just know that what they are doing is right,” he remarked.

The media, which should be the main allies in the campaign against violence, often ”demonise” children and adolescents, while the entertainment industry casts them as criminals in numbers far greater than those found in the real world.

According to the World Health Organisation, 30 percent of homicide victims are between 10 and 28 years of age. ”The crimes committed by minors are infinitesimal compared to the crimes committed by adults,” stressed Pinheiro.

The regional consultation in Buenos Aires, which will wrap up Wednesday, was inaugurated by Pinheiro alongside UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Rima Salah and Argentine Minister of Social Development Alicia Kirchner, with the participation of representatives of non-governmental organisations and UN agencies.

Salah emphasised that violence against children leaves scars and kills, and while the scars are not always visible, they have a profoundly destructive impact on their futures.

”We must break the silence around these issues,” she said.

Kirchner concurred with the need to combat the invisibility and acceptance of violence against the young, while harshly criticising state institutions ”that confuse the protection of minors with policing them.”

Pinheiro noted that while Latin America has succeeded in making democracy the norm, after decades of dictatorship in various countries, the region has still not been able to eradicate violence against children, and much of the blame lies with the strong resistance of state structures that repress minors and deprive them of their rights.

Children’s rights ”will be an illusion in democratic societies if the state maintains unacceptable practices like police brutality, torture, lynching and abominable prison conditions,” he said.

Pinheiro, who formerly served as a UN special rapporteur on human rights in Burma and Burundi, said that the rights most frequently ignored or violated are those of children and adolescents, and this takes place ”with the tolerance of governments, and even progressive governments.”

”The problem with the democracies in Latin America is the existence of split-personality states that reduce malnutrition and illiteracy on the one hand, while subjecting children in prisons to authoritarian and illegal practices on the other,” he said.

Legal protection of minors is established in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which entered into force in 1990 with the signatures of 191 countries. Two protocols were later added, one against recruiting minors for armed conflict, and the other to fight the trade of girls into prostitution rings.

Pinheiro does not believe there is a need for another protocol specifically addressing violence against children. ”We already have too many instruments, what we need is for them to be fulfilled,” he said. He believes the best strategy is foster greater mobilisation and participation in the consultation process, to gain a commitment from the largest possible number of actors.

As part of this process, thousands of youngsters around the world shared their views on violence through non-government organisations that work with children. A clear image emerged of the extent to which minors bear the brunt of violence in the home.

The ”reasons” for hitting or beating children can be remarkably trivial, like the fact that they have dirtied their clothes. Some cases reflect the way that minors are forced to take on adult responsibilities, such as children who are beaten for not taking proper care of their younger siblings, or because they do not contribute enough money to the household.