Kids are our future

We all know kids are our future. But what kind of world are we creating for our children and what kind of life do we offer them? In some countries children are forced to fight as soldiers or toil in mines and factories; others are victims of violence and abuse; and globally more than 100 million children don’t get to go to school.

Twenty years ago world leaders endorsed a new convention in the United Nations in an attempt to ensure children everywhere got the best opportunity in life regardless of where they lived, their race or gender. The Convention on the Rights of the Child was subsequently signed by every country in the United Nations. It was aimed at ensuring children got to enjoy some basic rights - such as the right to go to school, to have access to shelter and adequate food but also to be able to play and have their opinions heard and respected.

So now two decades later is life any better for our children, both here in Australia and around the world?

There has been significant progress: today 10,000 less children die a day of preventable diseases than they did in 1990. But there are also still enormous challenges. And while children in Australia fare better than those in many other parts of the world there are still significant issues that need to be tackled here at home.

Australia took the important step of ratifying the convention nearly 19 years ago, yet children’s rights in this country remain paradoxically low on the national agenda.

That an estimated 1,530 Australian children died as a result of abuse or neglect in 2006, crammed conditions in juvenile detention forced some Australian children into adult facilities and nearly half of Australia’s 100,000 homeless people are younger than 25 highlight the need for greater protection of children’s rights in Australia.

Indigenous children are particularly at risk given they are six times more likely to be involved with the statutory child protection system than non-Indigenous children. And figures released this month reveal that Indigenous youths are almost 30 times more likely to be detained than non-Indigenous youth.

Many asylum-seeker children are forced to live in closed immigration detention facilities - about two-thirds of the 82 asylum-seeker children on Christmas Island live in low-security camps in claustrophobic conditions that compromise their health and wellbeing, according to an Australian Human Rights Commission report.

Similarly, the lack of political will to take responsibility for the asylum-seeker children aboard the Oceania Viking stranded at an Indonesian port demonstrates serious cracks in the Federal Government’s commitment to children’s rights.

These are glaring violations of children’s right to protection and demonstrate the failure of child protection policies across the country to prevent the injury, abuse and death of thousands of Australian children.

But their rights are undermined in other ways.

Inadequate access to education for children in remote regions, for those with disabilities and from culturally diverse backgrounds, limited representation of children’s views in political and legal debates, low youth wages and restrictions on Indigenous and homeless young people using public spaces are breaches of children’s rights.

The absence in Australia of a national agenda that prioritises children’s rights across the country, developed in consultation with children, undermines the wellbeing of Australian children.

Currently, children’s policies in education, health and protection differ across the states and territories. Likewise, the role of existing state and territory children’s commissions varies between jurisdictions. Some take a broad focus on enhancing children’s wellbeing in the community while others concentrate on children and young people at risk.

This lack of cohesion means that insufficient attention is given to children and young people in the national, political arena. Australia needs a long-term, national plan for all children to raise their status and importance in society.

In 2005, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that Australia adopt a national framework for children, enshrined in federal legislation, to make state-based children’s polices more consistent to increase accountability.

But children continue to fall off the radar on broad policy issues.

Maybe this stems from a fear that child rights somehow infringe on the rights of parents. Policy-makers need more focus on families and recognise the specific interests of children.

A national children’s commissioner that promoted the rights of the children and young people, a policy proposed by the Democrats and the Labor Party before taking office, would provide national leadership and monitor and advocate for the wellbeing of Australian children. The commissioner should be an independent statutory officer with powers and authority determined after community consultation and enshrined in legislation. Importantly it would ensure that children do not continue to fall through the cracks in government policy.

But for a national children’s commissioner office to be truly effective, it would need the resources and the scope to provide an independent voice for children on issues such as cyber-bullying, sexualisastion of children in the media, Indigenous disadvantage, education and domestic violence.

Poverty, child abuse, poor education standards and social disadvantage can’t be effectively tackled without recognising the value of children in the community. This means giving them a voice at a national level and properly addressing children’s rights to promote their growth and development.