Stealing their innocence

At one point in my career, I was a paediatrician, before taking a neurological path. But one does not need to be a paediatrician to realise that childhood is probably the most wonderful stage of life, as experienced by the child, and observed by the adult — especially the parents. It is the stage of physical growth, personality development, avid learning, warm friendship, unspoilt innocence and a long, deep sleep at night! We, as power wielding adults, should naturally nurture all these qualities and give them their best chance of full expression, and we generally do.

And yet, there are literally millions of children all over the world who are deprived of most if not all these pleasures of childhood. It is not as if such abuse occurs in secret, for much has been written and said about it. It flourishes because it is, unfortunately, in the interest of certain groups who thrive and prosper off the backs of children to maintain such abuse.

Take the question of child brides. I have written about this before, in Gulf News, a problem so ingrained in many societies, including Muslim society, because of the selfishness of ageing men who aim to revive their flagging sexual prowess by marrying girls who are the ages of their own children, if not younger. There are now international groups working hard against this, such as the All-Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, chaired by Baroness Tonge, before whom I had the rare opportunity to testify as a medical expert witness of Yemeni origin. There need to be strict and enforceable laws in those countries which currently turn a blind eye to such crime, in the short term, and public education in the long term. Muslim governments and administrations should announce, from the roof tops, that the fact that Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) married Aisha when she was a child, took place under completely different circumstances, many centuries ago, and will no longer serve as an excuse for the maintenance of such tradition.

Take also the recruitment of child soldiers, sometimes as young as eight, or perhaps younger, in underdeveloped areas of the world, where birth certificates do not exist. Human Rights Watch reported that such crime against children occurred in more than 20 recent armed conflicts, mostly in Africa and Asia. Children are manipulated to commit acts of violence, sometimes against their own parents, to prove their loyalty and avoid torture or death. That also ensures that they can never go back home. The females among them act as sex slaves, after being raped. The poor and orphaned children are, as one could imagine, the most vulnerable. Some are sent into minefields ahead of regular troops.

Although the above are the worst abuses, child labour is another injustice meted to children and affecting a huge number. It is estimated to affect 15 per cent of children in the age bracket of five to 15 years. It seems to be very common in Asia, in countries with large populations, where poverty is so severe that sweat shop owners have no difficulty finding recruits who are then forced to work very long hours under hazardous conditions, for a pittance. However, there are also millions who are abducted and trafficked to such factories and sweat shops. How many times have we heard about such children being burnt alive, when a fire started accidentally in the shop, but they were unable to escape because the owner had locked them in, in order to prevent them from leaving their work place? But such children also have to endure physical and psychological trauma at the hands of their employers, including beatings, humiliation and sexual abuse. The figures are staggering. The number of such children worldwide is estimated to be similar to the population of the whole of Japan, i.e. 120 million. Just imagine that! All these abuses are well known and documented by the International Labour Organisation and most countries in the world have agreed to fight these abuses — on paper that is. It is often very difficult to implement such laws, partly because of corruption and partly due to poor administration. Whatever the underlying cause, it is indeed shameful that this world of plenty, indeed of gross excesses in the West, should permit all these abuses against such vulnerable children. What happened to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) adopted in 1989 — 23 years ago?

Dr Qais Ghanem is a retired neurologist, radio show host, poet and novelist. His two novels are Final Flight from Sana’a and Two Boys from Aden College. His non-fiction book My Arab Spring, My Canada is to be published by Amazon in October 2012.