16/08/2021
Humans have a strong desire to believe in legends. They are required for the adoption of a collective behavioural pattern. However, there is a rising need to replace myths with a new global ethic that can address modern issues such as environmental degradation and excessive wealth disparities. One such common misconception is that of children's rights. We are led to think that stolen concepts from international agreements and instruments, crammed into ceremonial and opaque child rights laws, acts, commissions, agencies, and bureaucracies, will provide Pakistan's children with the much-needed protection. The opposite could not be further from the truth. With each passing year, our ‘more of the same' strategy has deteriorated our status in every indicator of child rights, including out-of-school children, child labour, and child maltreatment. As a result, there is a need for a more sober and fundamental reconsideration of children's rights, myths, and realities. In a civilization, children are similar to birds. Birds fly not because of any inherent right or monopoly granted by a legislative act. They do so because they have wings that have developed over thousands of years to assist them avoid predators. They also only do so when they have adequate room to climb, dive, hover, or glide. The biological capabilities of a bird and the physical settings in which it lives therefore safeguard its "rights." If a bird's wings are clipped or it is kept in a cage, no amount of laws, commissions, or conventions can make it fly. As a result, any mythical ‘rights' awarded by a United Nations organisation of of little relevance to birds. Instead of concentrating on strengthening the capacity and surroundings required for the safety and growth of our children, we continue to seek shelter in myths. Let's start with the fundamentals. Parents do not sell their eight-year-old daughters to become domestic servants, where they would be beaten and killed. They allow their children to work as sanitary or kiln employees, subjecting them to indignity, maltreatment, and a life without joy, not because they despise their children, but because they are impoverished. They are impoverished because it is in the interests of the state and the wealthy elite to keep them in poverty. They are impoverished because they do not receive the bare minimum legal salary to which they are entitled. They are impoverished because neither the state nor society guarantees that they are enrolled for old-age benefits (EOBI) or social security programmes. As a result, we support a system that encourages poverty and limits parents' ability to create a decent, safe life for their children. The degree of protection a kid receives is determined by the environment in which he or she lives, including schools, hospitals, towns, and families. Our rapidly growing population has produced situations and surroundings that drive millions of youngsters to live in one-room shacks, skip school, work as minors, or simply live and beg on the streets. Pakistan, which had a population of six million fewer than Bangladesh in 1971 but today has a population of 58 million people, is growing at a rate of 12,000 children each day. Pakistan has been unable to fulfil any development targets pertaining to poverty or child protection due to its huge population increase. Myths cannot be used to protect children's rights. They can only be given by dealing with reality, such as an unsustainable fertility rate and a poverty-stricken population. Pakistani children remain vulnerable, exacerbated by an enormous wealth divide, unless their parents are well compensated and the government is able to control an out-of-control population.
Source:
Child rights cannot be ensured on the basis of myths
