Keep an eye on the child… – Article by Eleni Mavrou, AKEL Political Bureau member
Sunday 20 November 2022, “Haravgi” newspaper
On 20 November 1989 the international community marked the 30th anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. On the same day, the UN General Assembly was adopting the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the first international legal instrument to establish specific and separate rights for children.
The Convention, which has been signed by almost all UN member states (with the notable exception of the USA by the way), includes provisions on the right to life, survival and development, the right to a name and nationality, the right to protection from all forms of exploitation. It is stressed that the freedom that children need to develop their intellectual and moral potential requires, inter alia, the existence of a healthy and safe environment, access to medical care and the assurance of a basic level of nutrition, clothing and shelter.
And yet the reality is sobering. Children’s rights may be legally and institutionally enshrined, but they are often violated; by conflicts, the climate crisis and the policies of neoliberal “less state” policies, which all lead to despair or marginalise millions of people. Children are the first to pay the price.
15,000 children under the age of 5 die every day from preventable diseases. Millions of children work under exploitative conditions for their bread and butter. More than 26 million children in Europe are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Every year, there are around 46,000 suicides among children between the ages of 10 and 19. Thousands of children leave their countries and often their families to escape recruitment in armed conflicts, child marriages and the consequences of war. Children walk 12 to 14 hours through the mountains, with snow up to their waists, to cross a border, or get into backpackers’ boats, paying smugglers a high price to get to a place where they seek to find safety.
In Cyprus, there are increasing accusations of child abuse…There are increasing cases of children deprived of even the essentials – food, clothing, heating…There are increasing reports of children with disabilities who are often denied their rights to education, protection, health care and social integration because the special infrastructure they need is inadequate or because funds are allocated meagerly… There are increasing complaints about children who remain “without a country”… children held in the migrants concentration camp set up in Pournara, children of mixed marriages in the Turkish Cypriot community, the children of the Kamara family in the revealing press reports revealed n “Haravgi” and many others like them …
The number of reports – interventions by the Commissioner for the Protection of Children’s Rights has exceeded 125 over the last ten years. Countless letters have been sent to Ministers and competent bodies – many without receiving a reply.
We are accustomed to saying that children are the future of a country. It would be good to remember that the safety and protection of children is a moral and legal duty of the State and of all of us. This is the best investment for the well-being of any society!
