Children's rights charade

The grandstanding on the rights of children is nauseating

The grandstanding on the rights of children is nauseating. This is stunt politics at its worst, a pretence of concern masking profound indifference, writes Vincent Browne.

A constitutional change that permits the adoption, in exceptional cases, of children from legal marriages is welcome. At present the Constitution disbars this. Almost everything else in the proposed referendum is bogus.

It is true there is no explicit acknowledgment of the rights of children in the Constitution. It is absolutely not true that the Constitution, as it stands, does not protect the rights of children and does not give primacy to the rights of children in all cases, bar the ban on the adoption of children of legal marriages. The Supreme Court has stated this again and again, most recently in the "baby Ann" case. There is an advantage in having this stated explicitly in the Constitution for there has been judicial uncertainty about the primacy of children's rights in the past, but this is more ornamentation than substance.

It must be terrifically satisfying for politicians to be standing up for children even when demanding a constitutional change that will make almost no difference. All the more so for politicians who stand for nothing else, oh, apart from the right to life - so long as it does not cost us anything, equal opportunity - provided we don't insist on the means, road safety - subject to the divine right of everyone to own and drive a lethal instrument, ie a car, and, yes, happiness. The new feel-good comfort blanket.

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For most of the children in this country what matters most to them is that they are brought up in a secure, loving environment, given a sense of self-worth and a sense of being equal citizens, have a real opportunity to realise their potential, have access to healthcare when they need it and adequate accommodation. And they also need to be protected from violence and sex abuse.

But the reality for hundreds of thousands of children is one of poverty, inequity, disrespect, low self-esteem, no realistic opportunity to achieve anything with their lives, consigned to die younger and experience worsening health during their lifetimes, poor education and, for many of them, violence and sexual abuse. There is absolutely no resolution on the part of those now strutting their concern for children to do anything meaningful about this condition.

At the risk of being repetitive - actually, it is not a question of risk, it is a certainty, sorry! - the ESRI recently published a report called Work Incentives, Poverty, Welfare in Ireland. This report had interesting data on children. This shows that the rate of income poverty for children in rich countries in 2000 was 2.4 in Denmark, 4.2 in Sweden, 10.2 in Germany, 12.4 in Greece, and 15.7 in Ireland. Of the 26 rich countries only New Zealand, Italy, US and Mexico had a worse rate. Now what does that say about our famed concern for children?

Ah, it will be argued, that came out in 2004. Well, then, what about 2004? This was a European survey of the pre- enlargement EU - 15 states, plus Norway. Here out of the 16 states, we came half way down. Eighth? Nope. Seventh? Nope. Fourth last? Nope, Third last? Yep. Yes, third last. Our rate was 22 , only Italy and Portugal were worse at 26 and 23 respectively. We shared third from the bottom place with the UK. Brilliant.

How could it be that a society that cares so much for the welfare of children, that is so protective of children, so committed to the welfare of children that it urgently wants to change its Constitution to copperfasten the welfare of children, that it comes bottom of the league when it comes to child poverty?

How often have we seen children being put into adults' prisons? Ditto children suffering from mental illness - what facilities for these? What concern do these touchy-feely politicos have for children in trouble with the law? We recently introduced the novel idea of criminalising children at an early age through anti-social behaviour orders, Asbos. What a ruse!

And as for children being subject to sexual abuse, what do we do for them? We have a "Stay Safe" programme which we rarely bother to monitor and which we have discovered recently is not available in a quarter of schools. But aside from that, what do we do?

Again at the risk/certainty of being repetitive, that famous Savi report, which was funded by the Departments of Health and Justice some years ago, found that one in five women reported experiencing contact sexual abuse in childhood and 5.6 per cent reported having been raped in childhood. It also reported that one in six men reported experiencing contact sexual abuse in childhood with 2.7 per cent of them having been raped in childhood.

A whole raft of recommendations was made in this report, most of them ignored. Instead we have a bit of strutting, remove the defence of honest mistake on unlawful carnal knowledge, and permit the circulation of "soft" information - information which nobody knows whether it is true or false - on "suspects". What a great idea and what wonders that will do for children.