Education: Freedom to have a happy childhood

Sydney
4 August 2002

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Stem-cell research

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Central Coast businesses help Vinnies care for needy

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Reflections: John Paul touches hearts of young

Challenge for Catholics to defend their faith

Hitting the high Cs on Toronto stage

Comment: Stem-cell research? Surplus or not, it’s a matter of life and death for embryos

Education: Freedom to have a happy childhood

Inspirations: Mercy Sisters open up Sacred Spaces

Education: Freedom to have a happy childhood

I have had a wonderful, free childhood. Open opportunities, rare and rewarding experiences, fond memories, and above all, a most loving and caring family.

Choices are mine to decide upon and I have the freedom to live my own life.

I go to a great school, have many friends, and enjoy getting involved in all aspects of both schoolwork and outside recreation.

My family has let me develop into my own individual being and I am free to do what I want with my life. Often, I get so caught up with what is happening in my own life, I do not take the time to really think about what it might be like for children who live on the outside world.

They live as outcasts of society and do not understand what a real childhood is meant to be like. What is freedom to these children? What does it mean? Do they have the choice to live happy lives?

Although we might not like to think about it, there are millions of children in the world who live in unfair and unjust conditions. They are raised in places that we, the children of Australia, cannot even begin to imagine.

They are exposed to a world of hunger, poverty, darkness, and despair; a world that many of us will never see. Their lives are torn apart and they are forced to live in undeveloped, war struck countries. What I do not understand is, if I have lived such a free, happy childhood, why cannot these children?

Children in all parts of the world have the right to be protected. Children everywhere are entitled to every right enlisted by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Children also need care, protection and special attention.

Children as growing beings are also in need of an adult world to nurture them, defend their rights as a child, help them develop and believe in themselves. These rights are realised in every part of the world.

Unfortunately for many children, the unacceptable truth is that governments have failed in ensuring that human rights for children are protected and respected. They have failed in making this law reality in every day life, and for many children, their lives are being ignored and disrespected.

What many people do not realise today is that children of poorer societies face the same challenges and forms of physical and mental abuse as adults do.

Children in the world today are suffering every second. They are almost always targeted because they are dependent of adults, very vulnerable and misunderstanding.

Children in poorer countries are mistreated and tortured in many ways. Thousands of children are lawfully detained, often in disgusting, unacceptable conditions. Thousands of others are killed in armed conflicts, forced by poverty or abuse to live on the streets, attacked, threatened, beaten, raped, forced into exploitive, dangerous jobs, victims of child trafficking and forced into prostitution.

This is why many children stuck in countries of poverty flee their homes to become refugees. These children seek refuge from the hazardous worlds they live in, finding it safer to leave. Although there may be many laws that ensure the safety of the children of our world, it is still hard to believe that even though we have come so far, we are still very far behind.

Children all around the world are victims of underage, child labour. This means those children as young as the age of five are forced to work in inhumane, indescribable conditions. Many of these child workers are refugees, working to support themselves and possibly their families. They often work in unhealthy, dangerous and inappropriate environments, such as in mines, brick kilns or brothels.

In these workstations, children are deprived of their rights of health, physical integrity, education and recreation-seemingly childhood itself. They are often isolated from family and friends, prone to all types of abuse.

Many of these children are sold, forced or grow up in labour; illiterate, unskilled and prone to crime. These children have grown up without a childhood. They have been forced into labour, working long hard hours and earning next to nothing.

Children under the age of 18 are currently involved in present wars around the world. More than 300,000 children are forced to take part in armed conflict in over 49 countries in the world. Over eight million children have been killed, seriously injured and permanently disabled from the results of conflict over the last ten years.

These child soldiers receive little or no training before entering the adult wars. The children have different jobs and roles to play in the war, some participating from the age of seven! Children from the age of 10 are using guns in war, and are at the risk of death or injury as well as suffering in military life.

Child soldiers receive harsh punishments for mistakes and are treated brutally. They are treated extremely badly, face torture, and sometimes even death. They are also at additional risk of dehydration, malnutrition, respiratory and skin infections, as well as serious sicknesses. Girls are especially at risk of rape, sexual slavery and abuse.

These children have grown up in a world of hatred and despite and have learnt no better. No child should have to live like this.

If so many children around the whole entire world have to live like this, and we know it is wrong, why is it still occurring? This would ask us to reflect back upon what freedom really means. Does it mean that we have the right to do anything we want, or does it mean that we have the choice to do anything we want?

Making our own choice involves having the ability to plot our own destiny and future. If refugees or poverty struck families in general do not have the choice to plot their own destiny, what hope do the children have? If we compare poorer, less developed countries to Australia, we can strongly say that we are extremely lucky to have the choice and therefore freedom in this country to do as we please. It is true that we have societal standards and expectations determined by the majority of people in a democratic way, but we still have the choice to follow our own path. This may mean that we are unable to attend or visit certain places or be employed in certain jobs, but it does not stop Australians from having the right to choose what they want to do with their lives.

Adults, let alone children in many countries do not have the basic choices that we as a society do, and therefore do not have the freedom to live a happy life.

As a child of Australia today, I strongly believe that children of all ages, genders, races, cultures and countries should have the right to be brought up by a loving, respectful family and community of people in a safe and peaceful environment. The child's family must understand that they should take full responsibility for the child, raising them in a natural, nurturing home, protecting them from all forms of neglect, abuse and exploitation. Adults should have the choice to live their life as they want. If the adults in a society do not have the freedom to live their own lives, what hope do the children have of freedom to live a happy childhood?