AFRICA DIRECTOR RIGHTS OF THE CHILD FOUNDATION
Sisters & Brothers, I bring greetings to you from Ghana, particularly from the Africa Regional Secretariat for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect of which I am the Director.
You may ask what right have I to talk on behalf of the future well-being of the Ghanaian child? All I can say is that overall I live in Ghana for 45 years, and that I hope to continue to live and work in my country. The point I wish to make in this short speech is that it is my belief and that of many others, including I hope, all of us in this hall, that the Rights of the Child are central to the future well-being of Ghanaian Children. The question is what do we need to do to work towards making it a reality? How in practice can we deliver the goods to the Children of Ghana?
The Rights of the Child meet the basics of children so that they may grow into useful citizens and develop their potential. They are essential to Ghanaian Children who represent more than half of Ghana's population, yet are voteless and face immense problems. They provide the enabling environment through which Ghanaian Children can strive to fulfill the aspirations and potentialities. For real qualitative improvement to take place on such scale requires a comprehensive creed for Children which can change attitudes and actions, this is what we believe the Right of the Child offer to Children.
By mid 1992, 31 of the 51 States of Africa had ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. One of the important features of these Rights, especially for those countries which have ratified, is that they represent the unifying and legitimating philosophy on which the different sectoral elements in education, health, safe water, child case, etc., which work for the survival, protection and development of children, should be based.
This has important implications for development, planning and implementation. The Rights of the Child represent a holistic approach to Children's needs and should work against sectoral isolation and its vertical blinkered approach instead it emphasises the interrelatedness of health, education, welfare, law, property, housing, etc., in a commonality of purpose. However, still today we have vertical programmes to benefit Children with little communication between the different sectors, this is most noticeable at central Ministerial level, where Ministries tend to view issues from their own limited perspective rather than as a part of an inter-Ministerial effort to achieve effectiveness for a cross-sectoral purpose e.g. Children, gender equity, fairness to those with disability, etc.
The holistic approach of Rights points the way to a rationalisation and complementariness of resources, which in any case, is being forced on many civil services in developing countries by lack of resources and decentralisation. It is about horizontal cross-cooperation between departments and disciplines to achieve results. The Rights of the Child present this challenge and opportunity to make the interlocking whole of this process a much greater force for the benefit of Children than the sum of its parts. National Programmes of Action are one example of how this can happen in the planning stage, which then has to be translated into co-ordinated action through district plans, sectoral workers within this Rights scenario have the opportunity, instead of operating within narrow jobs descriptions, with strict work demarcations, to be given a broader mandate and thus become more Rights development activists. This is what I think we should be working for.
MAXIMISING OPPORTUNITY
How can this opportunity of a Rights based action programme be maxinised.
SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS
One of the essentials is that situational analysis are required to pin-point areas of need and imbalances. How successful, for example, is the provision of immunisation, primary education, safe water, protection and the other basic necessities of life? An important area in this analysis is also to find out how Children are perceived at village level. What are the attitudes of adults towards Children and their having Rights. And what are the attitudes of the Children themselves to their Rights and to their situation? For example, do adults see Children as patriarchal property or as small adults, or as a specific group of persons who because of age and the vulnerability that goes with it, have a special set of needs and Rights.
Influence
A second requirement is that a critical mass of believers in the concept contained in the Rights need to organise themselves in relevant forms, such as Rights of the Child Foundation, Save the Children Fund, etc. to influence opinion leaders, the public, government policy and the law and their implementation. In this way the corporate attitudes in Government, NGOs, UN agencies and bilateral can be influenced and also the individual attitudes of opinion leaders and people in general. In these forums for influencing there will be a need to establish agreed values and principles and then with relevant others, to formulate policies, and intervention and implementation strategies.
Supportive Environment
Thirdly, a supportive reform environment is required. This is partly created by the critical group of activists and their having the necessary data which I have already mentioned, but it also requires the need for reform is accepted by political and opinion leaders. In developing countries this means by government and especialy the Head of State. There is, fortunately for us, an international emphasis by the major powers linking human rights and good governance with the delivering of aid, to developing countries.
So, Rights, like it or not, have become a player on the political chess-board and can, if wisely used, help to progress reforms to benefit Children. This may be used in providing more of the financial cake to the social services sector rather than for example to defence, or to supporting legislative or policy changes which have their 'raison d'etre' in the better delivery of Children Rights.
SURVIVAL, PROTECTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN
The Rights of the Child are usually presented in one of two ways. They are described as addressing these areas; that of provision, protection and participation, or survival, protection and development. The World Declaration signed by world leaders at the World Summit for Children in New York in September, 1990, emphasises the latter area of survival protection and development of Children in this title and that national plans of action should work towards implementing the required improvements in these areas. Unlike with survival and development there is no visibly transacted technology e.g. immunisation through drugs, education through books, etc. However, in many ways it is the attitudes of people which also under-pin whether the methods and knowledge used in relation to survival and development are sustained.
ATTITUDES
How can attitudes be sensitised concerning the Rights of the Child so that the survival, protection and development of Children is seen as each person's responsibility? The survey I mentioned earlier, which was done in Ghana recently in 5 regions covering 136 villages, on how Children and their Rights are perceived, through focused group discussion with men, women, children, church congregations and key informant interviews, showed that although there were common abuses of Children in terms of gender, children are special and need to be treated differently from adults because of their age and vulnerability.
Also the researcher received a most positive reception from all the groups he encountered in that they wished to know how they could better bring up and assist in the development of their children. This wish to know how children can be assisted to become useful citizens of Ghana and fulfill their potential, was I think, probably the most exciting factor to come out of this study. At least Ghana people wish to hear and reflect on what is seen as good child care practice. Although we do not know, this very positive attitude may be common to most developing countires in Africa where Children traditionally were given a special place.
This willingness to discuss and consider attitudes towards Children did I think rather surprise those of us involved in the drawing up of this survey. We had expected there would be some resistance to the concept of the Rights of the Child. It shows that those of us at the centre may be the ones who are stalling in raising issues which will assist in Children's development through the discussing of commonly held attitudes, when in fact at the grass roots there is an openness and preparedness to change which we were unaware of.
THE WAY FORWARD
May be then it is the job of the entire family to catch up with the demands of the children. What is the way forward? I would suggest there are 3 main areas for advancement. First, I would suggest that Rights-influenced national policies and right-based national laws concerning Children provide an essential framework and an example of the ownership of these Rights within each region. A comprehensive reform of Child law linked to the Rights of the Child is one way forward which, on being adopted has the national stamp to approval from the country's law makers. However, these laws have to be affordable, acceptable and achievable. Laws can be limited and focused as with statutory instruments or comprehensive as statutes.
For example in Ghana, a particular specific piece of legislation in the form of a statutory instrument. In Ghana, there are Ghana Law Reform Commission, proposals were designed so as to institute, whether possible, local solutions to local problems, hence the appointment of an official responsible for Children's interests, from village to district level to promote informal action for the welfare of local children, whilst village courts provide a more formal local approach. These are very important in achieving community care for Children.
Secondly, and more important in actual resolution of child-related problems are the multitude of "informal" interventions within families and communities. It is at this level that the Rights of the Child especially need to be owned. This requires massive and well planned sensitisation campaigns using all available channels and media. Production of a simplified version of the Rights of the Child needs to be considered where necessary in local languages, and explained. This is a method of sensitisation that can be engaged in with people in Ghana in a participatory way fairly quickly, and is also a most important prelude in the process of spreading the belief in the Rights of the Child, which needs to be foundation for new laws.
Thirdly, in between the legal framework of laws and national policies, and grass-root sensitisation and participation, lies the important area of structural and intervention planning is, I believe, in the development of District Plans for Children, both in their planning and implementation. This brings the general statements of intent from the National Plans of Action into the concrete reality of District life.
The most effective in working towards the reality of the Rights of the Child, all these 3 methods of trying to improve the situation of Children are required, as well as others. The task is great but I believe there is a real commitment by Child Rights activits, like ourselves, to bring about a change in attitude toward Chanaian Children, and more important still, that the people themselves wish to be full participants in this process of improving the situation of their Children.