A few days ago, a little girl, a toddler really, met with a grisly accident in school when her head got caught between the elevator and the floor. A well-respected English newspaper went on to print a photograph of the child in that fatal position. Now, it’s all over YouTube.
This is unacceptable. Firstly, the wantonness with which we release the name of the child, as if she had no right to personal space, or her family no right to deal with the horror in private. Secondly, the callousness with which the photograph is put out. Thirdly, the indifferent manner in which we treat such incidents, especially when it comes to children; they have no one but adults to take their side, and very often, we don’t.
Big Question
You might say the bigger question here is not how the media behaves, or misbehaves (it does), but how society regards the child. Have you watched how adults walk with their children on the streets? Invariably they have them on the wrong side, on the side that has traffic zooming past dangerously close. Or how they are made to primp and project themselves on reality shows?
Adults shove them around, yell at them, and parents often tell teachers to freely punish their children for whatever reason. Corporal punishment is outlawed, but we all know that children are routinely beaten by teachers. We humiliate them privately and publicly and expect them to ignore all of their hurt feelings.
Fear and punishment
Years ago, when someone I know first walked into a class of 6- or 7-year-olds, a child ran up to her and gave her a ruler. “To beat us, Miss!” said the little fellow when he saw the puzzled look on the teacher’s face. “Imagine beating babies!” she said to me later, adding that it was clear they had been at the receiving end from a long line of teachers in a really posh school. Adults let toddlers travel without escort in cars, and I personally know of children of different generations who have been left alone in their homes for hours at a stretch.
Children can be little devils, we all know that because we’ve all been that. But as children, that’s their privilege and as adults, it’s our responsibility to look out for them, not look down on them. They depend on us until they’re mature enough to make their own decisions; that varies from child to child.
Rights and Laws
Of course, there are any number of rules for the protection of children. For instance, article 28(2) of the Convention on Rights of Child 1989 says school discipline should be administered in keeping with a child’s human dignity. Article 29 says the purpose of school education is to help a child develop personality, talents, and mental and physical abilities. Article 19 lists ways to protect children from physical abuse and mental violence. Yet, in a school that I know of, the main gate was often left wide open and unattended. What use does a five-year-old have for a book on rights when the only right that matters is the right to be kept safe?
Let down
Haddad’s protagonist is barely 11. Yet, “Cannabis and alcohol, heroin fumes on an aluminium sheet, ether and even burnt glue, he had tasted them more than once, in Kabul as well as in Istanbul or in the sewers of the station in Rome. All the street kids did it more or less regularly, the thousands of refugees, those who had fled their villages, those who refused to join the insurgents. Their only ambition was to earn enough money and to leave, to strike a deal with a vaguely honest escort, to reach the other world, the one they saw in the pictures awash with joy.”
When the boy is finally killed, “after the routine photographs, one of the civil servants throws a tarpaulin” over him. His story is over. But it is not the end of the terrorising of children.
The question is, can children have rights independent of adult support?