EMPOWERING CHILDREN

by

Shay Cullen

INTRODUCTION

Is it very relevant and challenging on this historic occasion, the 10th.

anniversary of the conference that drew up the final draft of what became

the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child that we are gathered

together in this same city of Helsinki, around the theme Empowering

Children. The implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the

Child is the foundation upon which we can build the empowerment of

children. While much has been achieved during the past ten years, yet

the powerlessness and exploitation of children continues .

Empowering children is a theme that is positive and inspiring.

Children need to be empowered because millions are still powerless,

vulnerable and unprotected and they continue to be systematically exploited

and abused. While there has been great progress during the past ten years

in public awareness

building and the enactment of new laws to protect children and new

initiatives to combat child labor and sexually abused and exploited

children, much remains to be done to empower children and tear down the

apathy and complacency that still pervades government and society. Much as

we might like to congratulate ourselves after ten years of trying to

implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child we cannot and ought

not.

STATING THE PROBLEM

We are instead faced with an ever greater challenge so long as millions of

children are enslaved, abused, exploited. According to the International

labor organization 50 to 60 million children between the ages of 5 and 11

are laboring in inhumane and potentially life threatening conditions.

In all 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are laboring in

developing countries . But many more are maltreated and abused victims of

serfdom, child pornography and sweat shops that utilize child labor.

We have to consider the millions of children in industrialized countries

that are physically and sexually abused in government and private

institutions, in the home and the neighborhood. They frequently grow up in

a culture of sex and violence , isolated from human interaction by the

video game sub-culture, without role modules of virtue to emulate and

admire and with divorce rates as high as one in every three marriages, the

children are deprived of the stability of family life.It is in a secure

family they should receive security ,affirmation ,encouragement and

inspiration.

EFFECT ON CHILDREN

These powerless children are the silent sufferers who endure their pain for

a life time without redress or justice of any kind. Many are survivors,

while they remain powerless, they endure maladjusted personalities.

Others retaliate against society and in anger and frustration turn to

violence and crime. As juveniles in conflict with the law they endure

further alienation and exclusion. We have to be greatly troubled by the

alarming rise in child suicide, where totally deprived of every human

support, children commit the final act of dis-empowerment and end their

lives before they have even lived.

Yet others find an outlet and a channel for their pain and hostility at

society when they are recruited as child soldiers. They compensate their

human powerlessness through acts of violence and empower themselves with

weapons in a destructive and dehumanizing way.This is not the empowerment

that helps children,but leads to an early death.

If we can only understand how much they are made suffer then not only

will our agencies and organizations commit themselves to greater efforts

to try to relieve that pain but we will try to address the root causes of

children's powerlessness ,exclusion and alienation.

RECOGNIZING OUR OWN LIMITATIONS

However, I am only too aware, that when we are faced with the enormity and

extent of these causes; poverty, war, political and economic exploitation

of whole nations , foreign debt and child labor, prostitution and many

more, we feel a huge sense of being powerless to do much about them.

Our own limited resources and inability to change society and destructive

human behavior brings on a rash of service fatigue, burn out and emotional

exhaustion. How many times have I wanted to give up the fight when it

seems so hopeless to end the spiral of child abuse and exploitation.

Perhaps that is so because we rely so much on ourselves and our

individual agencies as the saviors and redeemers of abused and neglected

children.

But with a change of policy,perspective, approach,call it what you will,

we can become more effective agents of change. We must be realistic and

may not be able to end child abuse and exploitation, but we can greatly

reduce it. We have to put aside the messianic mind-set , the patronizing

attitude that creates a gap between US and THEM. We the givers, they the

beneficiaries ,ought to change to 'all of us together'. We must accept

that we cannot do it alone , and recognize that children are willing

participants in the process of their own empowerment.

THE PROCESS OF EMPOWERMENT.

Empowerment is something psychological and spiritual that rises up within

each individual when they are set free from fear and exploitation and it

makes them feel dignified ,confident, affirmed ,respected and admired. It

also a condition by which they are strongly motivated to act with courage

and determination to change the situation of exploited and abused children.

Our role in the empowerment of children is to break down the barriers of

racism, exclusion,exploitation and abuse and set the youth free to find

themselves in an environment of acceptance, understanding and

encouragement.

We can change if we allow youth and children to change us. We have to

listen to them, understand how they feel, accept their ideas, allow them

to participate in our planning, treating them as partners and friends. We

ought not be patronizing them as subjects of our charity, but affirm,

educate, strengthen, organize and let them be responsible for themselves.

If we let them take some authority into their own lives they will be

unafraid to make good and positive decisions for themselves. Away with

the authoritarianism and regimentation that stifles the spirit

,confines the mind, and restricts the growth of personality and independent

thinking.

Empowerment is a process of trusting, affirming, building self esteem in

children. To do this we need the courage to become more effective agents of

change.In this way children will bond with adults in a respectful

meaningful enterprise that makes them feel that they are important and

really belong. In this process they are empowered and become effective

agents of change themselves.

When the process of empowerment begins and individual children begin to

find their inner strengths, their desire to help others lights up and the

positive force of the peer group is created. Apart from the influence of

parents on their children, there is perhaps no greater influence than the

pressure and example of peer group. If it for the good, it further

empowers the children in a significant way. This is the process whereby

children empower children, to liberate themselves and others.

To create this process of self-empowerment should be our goal. A

liberated spirit, filled with concern,compassion and love will ignite the

spirit of others and empower them to liberate themselves.That is how we

should be, a flame that lights the darkness of their lives and ignites in

their spirits self awareness and self -esteem and a desire to help

themselves and others.

The children and youth themselves are a powerful source of strength for

themselves for other children and for all of us. Even throes who are most

oppressed and exploited have within them the seeds of empowerment. It is

for us to prepare and water the earth for them to grow.

CONDITIONS FOR EMPOWERMENT.

Most of us here are practitioners, working in agencies whose goals and aims

are to assist children in dire circumstances. We may be assisting children

in center based programmes, we may be active in community development,

educational and out-reach programmes for children or we may be engaged in

both.

The world population of children are sadly divided by society in to class,

the rich the middle class and the poor. Never-the -less all three sectors

have to be exposed to the process of empowerment . With inspiration and

motivation one group of children can be empowered , liberated and to be

inspired themselves to go out and help other children. Especially throes

who are who are enslaved and oppressed.

The empowerment process leads to organized youth groups that are

motivated to take action for children's rights. Such a movement unites

children behind a common goal of empowering other children.This can lessen

the divide between the classes and help unite children in a common goal,

protecting their rights.

Organizing the millions of children and youth in school or out of

school in such a way as to enable them to become and act as agents of

change should be a major goal of our activities helping children.Together

with them we become partners, friends and agents of change in society.The

power and influence of empowered youth and children has yet to be

recognized as a powerful process for change in society.

EXAMPLES OF EMPOWERMENT

The Global March was for me a vivid example when children liberated from

bondage became the voice crying for freedom for their millions of brothers

s and sisters in the brick yards and factories ,the brothels and the

bordellos of the world.

They became truly agents for change when they marched into towns and cities

all over the world. When the Global March started in Manila there was an

estimated ten thousand children on the march, chanting and waving banners

and calling for freedom from child labor and sexual exploitation. This was

repeated around the world and culminated in Geneva when thousands marched

on the ILO meeting at the UN building .

I felt great pride marching with them and entering that UN building with

the youth leaders.This example of empowered children, filled with a sense

of their own dignity and importance, greatly influenced public opinion and

the ILO delegates who set about the speedy drafting and passing of the

ILO convention on Child Labor.

Free The Children , A Canadian group of children and youth, founded by

then 12 year old Craig Kilberger and his brother Marc and other teenagers.

It started when he came to know about the exploitation of child workers

in Asia and the murder of one child that dared to speak out against it.

This organization has united children across Canada and parts of the United

States to come to the help of children bonded in labor. They have conducted

many successful campaigns building public awareness and bringing changes

in political awareness .

In my own experience young leaders who have been empowered and trained

have mobilized other children and youth in towns throughout one entire

province and organized seminars and rallies on children's rights.

They are imaginative and creative.They use puppet shows, dance, musicals

and song to show the evils of child exploitation and abuse and to change

attitudes in a society that have in the past allowed children to be

exploited and abused.These youth groups can change apathy and tolerance of

child abuse to one of action and defense of children.

EMPOWERED YOUTH ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE CHILD RIGHTS ADVOCATES.

Many of the youth and children who participated in the Global March and in

many of the other rallies and processions for Children's Rights that I

have joined were led by liberated an empowered children. Many had been

factory workers and brick makers since a young age,others had been

exploited as child prostitutes.

It is those young people who participate in reflection and planning groups

on the rights of the child are the most compelling speakers. In my work

the former children prostituted and exploited and now graduates of our

therapeutic Family who are the most convincing advocates of all.

WHAT THE CHILDREN SAY

I can only draw on my own limited experience at the Preda

residential recovery center for abused children and the youth outreach

programmes of Preda for insight. For 25 years we have been looking for

more effective ways to help children overcome the traumatic experience of

abuse and to be empowered so that they can empower others has convinced me

of certain things.

One is to listen to the wisdom of children. I consulted the fifty

children,in the Preda center all recovering from abuse and asked them

what strengthened and encouraged them the most in their process of

recovery.

The majority answered that they experienced self-confidence and

inner strength when they felt secure and safe and could express that they

had held hidden for so long. They said that Primal Therapy released their

anger and hatred until it was gone. Like a poison that once weakened

them and then they felt strong again. Others said they experienced inner

spiritual strength when they were able to release all of the pent up anger

and pain during their course of therapy.

Then I looked into my own childhood and remembered how important it was

for me to be able to go home from school crying and tell my parents how I

had been harshly and unjustly punished.

The support ,affirmation and trust that I received from my parents made a

lasting impression on me.It enabled me to continuing in school despite the

harsh regime. The support and affirmation that children receive in times

of crises is what has the most profound and lasting impact on their

personalities and formation as human beings.

I have vivid and painful memories of my early school years in Ireland in

the 1950's. It was routine practice for us children to be slapped and

beaten with a thick leather strap,or repeatedly whipped with a rattan

cane that left red welts across our hands and legs. When we cried or

protested then there was the additional slap on the ear, or the clenched

fist that rapped our heads, the twisting of our ears and the torrent of

verbal insults that humiliated us. In those days we were so afraid we lost

interest in learning. It was a process of dis-empowerment. I learned

early what it was to be powerless and unable to change my situation,having

no say in what was done to me and having no rights.

One of the first lessons I learned in school was that adults had all the

power over children. My parents hurried to the school every time to

protest to the authorities about the harsh physical and psychological

punishments but there was little my parents were able to do against an

educational regime that did not recognize that children had rights but

insisted that we only had the duty to obey and endure, without complaint or

redress.

If it were not for that support and love from my parents I would not be

here today. I knew the meaning of powerlessness but it was my parents who

gave me the love and protection and the strength to overcome the fear .

Protective Home environment source of empowerment.

The love and affirmation of one's parents is the most important experience

of all.That is why a stable and secure family is so vital in the early

chidl hood development and a broken home the most devastating for

children. Children need to cry and let out pain and hurt, they and need

someone there to stand by , to hold and embrace and listen to their

troubles. That secure, supporting and affirming family who protect and

defends the child is the most empowering environment of all .

Many of us here are practitioners caring for children in residential

centers or community projects. And I cannot express strongly enough that

this deepest need of children to be wanted, cherished, affirmed and

given comfort and protection, to be listened to and understood is the

most necessary thing of all if we want the children to recover ,grow and

develop a balanced and well adjusted personality.This is the seed-bed of

empowerment .

INTERNATIONAL ADVOCACY ROLE FOR IFCW.

Society must do much more to make this world a decent and safe place for

children to live free from abuse and neglect .We need to unite our efforts

through the International Forum for Child Welfare and the regional groups

to become an even more effective channel for the voice of children to be

heard. Our organization has the influence and the ability to become a

leading agency for the empowerment of children and advocacy for children

by children.

This is the challenge that we all have as we approach the millennium on

this 10th anniversary of the founding of the International Forum for Child

Welfare. W e have to lay ourselves down like a bridge over troubled water

so that they can cross to safety and freedom.

Our role is to provide the structures by which children can escape to

freedom from abuse and find acceptance and justice. Experiencing justice

when one has been greatly wronged, exploited and abused is perhaps the

second most powerful experience of empowerment. For a child to be able to

speak the truth in a fair child friendly court of law without fear of

retaliation is indeed a most empowering experience.

Therefore our task is to empower children by helping reform, strengthen,

change the judicial system in our countries to a juvenile justice system

that gives justice to the victims of abuse,neglect and exploitation in a

way that takes into consideration the special circumstances of the child

victim and proceeds in a way that is child friendly and supportive.

INTERNATIONAL COURT FOR CHILDREN'S RIGHTS, ROLE FOR IFCW

There are countries that are yet far from that goal and states that while

they may have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, have not

implemented it and where unspeakable atrocities and organized crimes of

murder , sexual abuse, trafficking , ethnic and religious execution, and

exploitation of children go unaddressed.

The abusers go free, the children are left in conditions of enslavement

and fear. Here is where the international community must provide a venue

of justice. Just as there is a court of human rights in De Hague, so to,

there must be a special child friendly court of children's rights set up

to provide justice when there are terrible crimes against children . There

is much said about the advantages of the globalization of the economy ,

and so many nations embrace it with open arms,likewise then can they not

welcome the globalization of justice for children with open hearts and

minds?

That is why we ,the members of the International Forum for Child Welfare

together with interested and cooperating agencies need to be the pioneers

to work for the establishment of an International Court of Justice For

Children which will uphold the rights of the Child when state parties fail

to address the most blatant and evil atrocities done to children.

CONCLUSION

I put it to you all that we must redouble our efforts to become an

International agency of children's rights and advocacy, in partnership

with the children we serve empowering them to be effective agents of

change in society so that not only are their rights protected by the just

implementation of state law and international law but that children are

empowered in such a way that they can participate in life to the fullest

, deprived of nothing that they need to become all that they can be . It

is for us to refocus our efforts ,realign our goals and to make it happen.

end.

Shay Cullen

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