Maud de Boer Buquicchio: "Children are not mini people with mini rights"

Those deaths are the  tip of a terrible iceberg. Underneath the water is a much more disturbing pattern: UNICEF Innocenti centre, which put together those frightening statistics, reckons that over the next twelve months, around 3,500 children under the age of 15 will die as a result of physical assault and neglect in the world’s richest nations; that one million children are trafficked across international borders in a year and that one out of  every ten child faces violence and bullying at school.

These figures are far too high for a century that believes itself to be civilized. That is why the Council of Europe – Europe's guardian of human rights – is launching a campaign to bring rights to children and to stop the violence.

The Council of Europe’s Social Charter Committee gave perhaps the most damning indictment of the situation when it considered the use of corporal punishment against children. Children, it said, the most vulnerable  human beings, were the least protected. An adult who hit an adult would be condemned, criticized, even brought before the courts - whereas children were slapped and beaten with impunity, and without a thought of intervention. It is almost as if the child - small and weaker as it is - is expected to live with curtailed and weakened human rights. 

But children are not mini people with mini rights. If anything, without the armoury of adulthood and the ability to defend themselves, they are more in need of proper and systematic protection. As  a human rights lawyer, working for the main European organization protecting those rights, my work has often cast me as a defender of children. What has become very clear to me is that although we adults set out laws to try and protect our children, those laws are rarely respected as they should be. Despite pages of legal texts, children are still voiceless victims.

The title of our campaign "Building a Europe for and with Children" is not accidental - we want to reflect the fact that we are not adults imposing on the younger generation, but that children themselves have a voice that should be heard and a right to the support and protection of those older than them.

This, for me, is one of the basic principles behind our campaign, which works to a program designed to include children and young people Our program was launched at Monaco on April 4 and 5, 2006 and from that moment on  children and young people are being involved; taking their place at all conferences and seminars. Material produced for the adult audience is paralleled by material that suits the needs of children and teenagers, especially when it helps them to understand the texts that spell out their rights, which would otherwise be obscure and useless to them – a relic from an adult world that does not take them into account.

Our program – which will initially run for three years    - will hopefully bring about a change in the way the law treats children - and not just from a European law point of view. What I want to see is a Europe where children are treated fairly before the courts in each country, where they are included in processes that can have a very direct impact on their lives. Judgements by the Court of Human Rights have already made some inroads - but more is needed if children are truly to be treated equally.  It is also very worrying that the Council of Europe’s Anti Torture Committee has discovered problems with the treatment of young offenders in prisons and places of detention in Europe. These are issues that need addressing once and for all.

When you begin to unravel the lack of protection afforded to children, it becomes very clear why the tide of violence against children is not receding. The laws that exist are simply not being translated into reality, and fundamental changes are needed to make that happen. But law needs to be matched with a change in mental attitude. I am frequently shocked when I see studies amongst parents from countries where it is still legal to smack a child in the home - they show that violence to children is very much accepted. For example, studies from Britain have shown that up to a quarter of young mothers find it perfectly acceptable to slap their very small babies.  As a human rights organization, the Council of Europe has a very strict point of view - such violence is not permissible.  Judgments of the Court of Human Rights have already set the tone, condemning such actions and asking governments to bring in laws to make them something of the past. Our program will go one step forward - calling for a ban on corporal punishment in the home throughout the 47 member states of the Council of Europe - a major step towards cutting back the level of violence.

Violence in the home is perfidious - bringing threat and fear to the place where children should reasonably expect to feel safe, secure and loved. The home is one of the areas the Council has chosen to study - and alongside we are looking at violence in schools, institutions, the community, the media and cyberspace. This last area is a particular concern - since 1996, when the Council of Europe was involved in the first World Congress against Sexual Exploitation of children - we have championed the right of children to be free of the threat of sexual exploitation and abuse. Our Convention on cyber crime has already set out  the ways that European countries can work together against pedophiles and ruthless gangs who peddle child porn - with the advent of internet access by mobile phone, its provisions are now being extended to protect children and young people with this new technology. More significantly still, the Council is moving towards drawing up a convention against sexual exploitation -   with the aim of making each European country strong in the fight against abuse. Most likely, it will call for extra territoriality laws to be added to the statute book in each country, meaning that nationals of a country who abuse children outside that country's territory can face criminal prosecution when they get home. Another important provision will be to set the statute of limitations from adulthood onwards - so that a child who is abused can still bring its abuser to court some time afterwards.

But experience has shown that an impressive array of legal texts are not enough to make a difference. That is why our campaign aims to bring the issue out into the open, to make every European, everywhere, take personal responsibility for the fate of the younger generation, and give young people and children the means to build their own future – for and with the adults.

By Maud de Boer Buquicchio,
Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe
Strasbourg, Thursday 31 May 2007