FACING REALITY
International Network
Facing reality
8 We work for a welcoming world and so that the Convention, unanimously approved 20 years ago and, then, ratified by almost all the Parliaments, becomes a concrete reality for children.
Unfortunately, we are very far from it!
Millions of uprooted children [9]
9 The reality that calls out to us is the millions of children whose roots and landmarks have been cut because they have been removed from their cultural milieu or because, even without leaving it, they have not been able to create one. Our experience tells us that the difficulties most children face usually come from being uprooted.
10 Physical uprooting
Armed conflicts [10], political exile due to an unacceptable political situation, displacements due to drought, famine, or natural disasters, rural exodus to urban areas for better job opportunities whether it is in one's country or abroad, human trafficking, some institutional placements or adoption, generate an unprecedented increase of forced or free mobility of adults and children.
11 Psychosocial uprooting
Children who are not listened to, who are victim of violence, abuse or who simply do not receive attention can feel like strangers at home. Rejected by family or society, they are somewhere else, sometimes not knowing exactly where [11].
12 Psychosocial and material uprooting are often intertwined
"Sometimes these factors are mixed with the sense of alienation children feel, their sense of vulnerability, the feeling that they are marginalized in a society that they do not belong to, where adults are the only ones who create the rules and the places where they are destined to are limited and come from the principle that they do not belong or they are not part of the adult world" (Martin, F. et Parry -Williams, J., 2005, p.12).
The rising of individualism, often characterized by a strong spirit of competition, has marked our post-modern societies. In disaffiliated societies, youth is no more part of a continuum, as heir of a human community attached to its culture and history. Children are in front of themselves, with no filiations, as if they were abandoned, with no roots ... [12]
Up to now, we believed that exceptional circumstances were at the origin of such a situation; this is actually not the case; millions of children around the world live uprooted and lack values.
We have to focus all our attention on this phenomenon intimately related to unsolved matters and to challenges that still have to be taken up. It deeply touches the dignity and the rights of the child. Its causes must be carefully studied, and we have to consider them when dealing with children, as with legislation and public policies on childhood.
13 Haunting questions
- Why do extreme poverty and misery, famines, diseases, ... still persist and affect so many children?
- Why do so many situations weaken and even destroy families and force children to exercise poorly paid and hazardous jobs, to steal, to be trapped into slavery or obliged to sell their body?
- Why are there so many children with no legal existence, no identity; why are disabled children ignored or abandoned in so many countries?
- Why drugs and their trade which ensnare many young people with the risk of destroying them?
- Why, in the Western hemisphere, are children too often sacrificed in the name of projects by adults pretending to act on their behalf?
- Why is the right to quality education for all denied to so many children making their access into the labour market difficult and hampering their possibility to become the protagonists of their own development?
- Why financial speculation, deregulation of markets, unrestrained pursuit of profit instead of a sustainable development for all?
Issues to be taken up
14 The weakening of families
Abandoned children in Russia
According to official estimates, out of the 3 to 5 millions Russian children who are abandoned, only 700'000 are orphans or of parents dismissed of their parental authority.
Dorena Caroli "Enfants abandonnés ou orphelins sociaux? Evolution de la politique sociale dans la Russie de la perestroïka et postcommuniste (1989-2004), Sociétés et jeunesses en difficultés No 4 - Fall 2007
Each expert group has paid attention to it. How to confront it?
- "Families' dispersion, increasing separation of couples, family re-compositions [...] This can lead to situations of neglect as well as parents abandoning their children, as we observe nowadays.[13]" (Europe-CIS)
- "The family organization is weakening, families hardly resist and couples are more fragile. In urban areas, single parent or reconstituted families...are increasingly numerous; in addition the absence of efficient social services prevents an early and effective regulation of failures. The child is less and less perceived as a gift, and more and more as a burden.[14]" (Africa)
- "The forms, roles, and structures of families in Asia are changing, not the least attributable to the rapid structural and socio-economic changes in Asian economies. The dimensions of change include rising ages at marriage, declining size of the nuclear family, changing gender roles within the family, changes in family structures consequent to population ageing.[15]" (Asia)
15 The status of adolescence
How to combine properly the necessary authority in education and the right of adolescents to creativity and self-expression?
How can we help adolescents assume their new freedoms and adopt responsible behaviours in view of their present and future commitments: building a life project, self-esteem and respect of others, reflection on responsible parenthood, protection against sexually transmissible diseases...?
16 Life in a multicultural world
Urban Growth between 1950 and 2025 Kinshasa: from 202 000 to 16 762 000 inhabitants Sao Paulo: from 1 544 000 to 21 428 000 Tokyo: from 11 275 000 to 36 400 000 Bombay: from 2 857 000 to 26 385 000 New York: from 12 338 000 to 20 628 000 UN Projections |
How to guarantee that children become aware of other cultures without loosing their history, their own culture, that is to say the resources and values upon which they have built their identity and human richness?
17 Massive urbanization
Since 2007, there are more people living in urban areas than in rural ones [16]. At present, one billion people live in slums.
How can we transform the migration of so many families and children and the reality of urbanization into real chances for the future?
18 Saving our planet
How do we preserve the ecological balance of our planet in order to hand over to the children of tomorrow a sustainable and peaceful world?
19 Globalization
How do we manage globalization in a way to avoid that inequalities increase within and between countries and in such a way that the most vulnerable, namely children can improve their living conditions?
[9] Father Clodoveo Piazza S.J. contribution to the Appeal largely inspired this development. A Bice Board member, he developed in Salvador de Bahia (Brazil), the Organizaçao de Auxilio Fraterno (OAF), an educational and vocational training institution for children and adolescents coming from the poorest and most violent areas. The Inter-American Development Bank, the Brazilian Government and other institutions distinguished it for its innovative approach. Father Piazza has also been Secretary of State to the fight against extreme poverty and social inequalities of the State of Bahia. He is currently based in Mozambique where he is in charge to set up educational projects and programs against extreme poverty.
[10] Children in the Middle East, in some African regions, in Latin America ... are particularly concerned.
[11] Secours Catholique report - Poverty in France in 2007 - particularly highlights the question of the child place in the family. It stresses the primary importance for the child to be with loving parents even when material living conditions are difficult and, consequently, the urgent need to protect family unit as the place capable to grant him/her the necessary security for his/her growth.
[12] See : « Le fil rompu des générations », Jean-Pierre Le Goff, Etudes, February 2009.
[13] Europe-CIS Position Paper p. 13.
[14] Africa Position Paper, p. 10.
[15] Asia Position Paper, p. 22.
[16] Atlas des migrations, p 58, Hors-série Le Monde-La Vie, October 2008.
