. Can you tell us a little about your organisations and the work you do?.
Ilaria: Child Rights
Connect is the largest Geneva-based network of civil society
organisations (CSOs) working on child rights. We have more than 90
members that are very diverse, including national, regional and
international CSOs. Child Rights Connect is the expert organisation on
the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Rights of the Child and the
platform for joint civil society advocacy at the UN level. I’ve worked
with Child Rights Connect for six years, and we are currently
strengthening our coordination efforts with our members in the regions,
for example in Europe with Eurochild.
Mieke: Eurochild is a
regional member of Child Rights Connect. We are a European network of
children’s organisations with almost 200 members across Europe,
including all the European Union (EU) member states but also in many
other European countries. I’m responsible for our work on child rights
and child participation. We campaign for children’s rights to be
implemented at the European level and focus in particular on vulnerable
children in Europe, with three key priorities: combating child poverty
and the social exclusion of children; the de-institutionalisation of
children – making sure that children don’t grow up in institutions; and
making sure that child rights are included in all EU policies,
legislation and programmes. We do this by working very closely with our
members and directly with children. We advocate towards the EU and
actively engage for child rights beyond EU countries, including with the
Council of Europe.
.What are the main sources of attacks on child rights, and what role are anti-rights groups playing?.
Ilaria: Attacks and
restrictions on child rights are coming mainly from non-state groups,
but also from some states. They are coming under the banner of advocacy
for the protection of the family and traditional values.
Mieke: Our members have
some serious concerns about anti-child rights movements in several
countries in Europe. Particularly in countries such as Bulgaria,
Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Serbia and Slovakia, there are anti-child
rights movements, and these movements are gaining a lot of support. They
use social media a lot, and use ‘fake news’ to be able to get their
messages across, very much focusing on the cause of preserving the
traditional family. Their messages are that child rights organisations
are taking children away from their families, and this should not be
accepted.
The campaign in Bulgaria went so far
that in the end the prime minister there decided to stop the draft of
the new strategy for the child, which would have introduced for the
first time a holistic approach for family policy, oriented not only
towards vulnerable children but also towards family support, including
non-violent parenting. The anti-child rights movement strongly
campaigned against the proposed new strategy as an ‘unallowable
intervention into the family’, raising public support through propaganda
and disinformation, and eventually the government gave in. In their
campaign, they even used the logos of children’s civil society and of
the child helpline in Bulgaria, spreading disinformation on their work
as ‘paid from external sources in terms of selling Bulgarian children
abroad’. Across the EU there is a free single number that children can
call if they need support and help; they campaigned against this, on the
basis that if children need help they can go to their parents and so
they have no need to call a child helpline.
As a result of these movements, not only
has development in child rights policies been stopped, but help and
support to the most vulnerable children is being threatened.
They create a lot of fear and
uncertainty among families. Research has demonstrated that the key
supporters of these movements are conservative Catholics and
conservative Protestants, but there is also a lot of support from
Russia, and from Belarus and Ukraine, and also partly from the USA.
Funding is coming from these countries to support anti-child rights
movements.
It’s very hard for our members to
campaign against it, because apparently these anti-child rights
movements get something like 187,000 supporters on Facebook. We can
question whether these are real supporters or fake ones, but it has the
effect of mobilising a lot of uncertainty and uproar against children’s
rights.
Ilaria: There is
currently a member of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the UN
body responsible for monitoring the Convention on the Rights of the
Child, who is Bulgarian and has been under direct attack from
anti-rights movements in Bulgaria. These movements are generally very
well informed and aware of what is happening at the international level
and of the functioning of the Committee and they never miss
opportunities to attack.
In 2014, the FamilyPolicy.ru group
issued a 97-page report, Ultra Vires Acts by the UN Committee on the
Rights of the Child, that aimed to delegitimise and dismantle the
mandate of the Committee, calling into question its core functions by
saying, for example, that the observations and general comments it
issues should only be of a general nature and not go into details. It
also included a specific call on states to denounce the Convention and
refuse to ratify its third optional protocol on a communications
procedure. This was quite a direct and unprecedented attack.
.What do you think is new about these attacks, and where do they derive their power from?
Mieke: I believe these
groups have always existed. They have always supported the family and
the strength of the family, and gone against the rights of children,
believing that parents can decide for children what to do and what not
to do.
Maybe they have been able to increase
their supporters very easily because of the opportunities given by
social media. Also governments are not really doing anything against
them. Civil society is not really being supported by governments.
Governments are not making statements that support children’s rights or
human rights. Some of our members are saying this is really what’s
lacking now.
Ilaria: They also seem to have resources – much more than child rights organisations – and therefore the means to mobilise.
Mieke: That’s true.
These anti-rights movements have a lot of funds. At the same time, the
space for CSOs working on democracy and child rights is shrinking, which
is particularly visible in terms of access to funding.
Ilaria: Another factor
that is pushing them to become more active is the advance of certain
topics within the child rights discourse that weren’t so prominent
before, such as the issues related to gender identities, LGBTQI children
and children growing up in LGBTQI families. While the child rights
movement has yet to properly integrate a gender perspective into its
work, children themselves are raising the issue in front of the
Committee on the Rights of the Child, in front of the international
community. But it’s something that’s adding onto the sensitive
discussions around sexual and reproductive rights.
Another emerging issue is the role that
children are taking as environmental human rights defenders. While many
stakeholders are opening their minds about children’s right to be heard
and the importance of having space where children can exercise their
civil and political rights, there has been a lot of hate speech against
those children speaking out online and offline. This reflects the still
pervasive vision of children as objects and not subject of rights.
Mieke: What they are
saying about LGBTQI rights is that people want to take away children to
give them to gay foster families. They are opposed to sex education in
schools.
We increasingly get reports that when
children speak in public at the local level, such as in city councils,
child rights defenders often get negative reactions and are told to shut
up. Children themselves are experiencing these negative attitudes,
which is difficult for them to deal with.
.How is civil society, including your membership, responding to these challenges?.
Mieke: Our members in
Bulgaria are quite active, and they are now very active on Facebook,
trying to get as many supporters as possible, but still the group is
smaller than the groups for supporters of anti-child rights movements.
Anti-child rights movements are making up stories to convince the public
that child rights are bad for children, and so we also need to share
our stories about what we are doing and why child rights are important
for children. Maybe in responding we need to use less the language of
rights of children and talk more about the wellbeing of children and the
need for children to grow up in safe families.
Basically our members are trying to
share their stories on social media and on television to try to get the
mainstream public convinced about the importance of child rights. They
say we shouldn’t engage with the extremists because we won’t be able to
convince them, but we should instead target the public who might not
have an opinion or who might not know yet what they agree with because
they need to have the right information and need to know the other
stories about child rights.
Ilaria: As the
international level we continue to try to draw the Committee on the
Rights of the Child’s attention to national-level contexts and
challenges so that it can take these into account when making
recommendations to states. For example, we made a reference to the
Bulgarian and European context in our public statement to the
Committee’s opening session in May 2019.
We are also always alerted about
initiatives brought by anti-child rights movements on the protection of
the family to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), where there is always
a danger around the corner. Here we collaborate and coordinate with
CSOs beyond our membership and that are working on different topics,
such as the human rights of older persons, in order to be aware of, and
respond collectively, to such initiatives.
We did a lot of work in 2014 when the
UNHRC adopted a resolution on the protection of the family and organised
a subsequent panel. Many initiatives around this sought to introduce
the idea that the family, understood as the nuclear family, has rights
as a unit, without acknowledging the human rights of individual family
members such as children, the different forms a family can take, and the
responsibility of states to protect the rights of individuals and
intervene, when appropriate. Child Rights Connect coordinated advocacy
to offer states an alternative, more consensual angle, which was
effective for finding constructive compromises during the negotiation of
the resolution and also for reaffirming children’s rights during the
discussions on protection of the family.
In 2017, we did the same in the context
of a seminar on the protection of the family and disability organised by
the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). This
year luckily nothing has happened, but we are always monitoring the
situation and this is ongoing work, because child rights organisations
working on specific issues might not be aware of these dangers.
We are also following and being alert
about the discussions around alternative care of children with
disabilities. In this context, some have been raising the issue of
whether a right to a family exists or should exist. While we acknowledge
the key role that families play for children, we think this is very
dangerous for child rights in general, as it is not in line with the
Convention on the Rights of the Child and opens up discussions around
the rights of the family. So we are trying to empower everyone to
understand the international law and the implications on child rights.
From 2017 we started to prioritise work
on civil society space for children and children human rights defenders.
What we have seen was that in moving beyond Article 12 of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, on the right to be heard, which
was the main basis for claiming child participation rights until now,
the human rights defenders framework and UNHRC resolutions on civil
society space are helping us to talk about children’s civic and
political rights. This is still quite an underestimated issue for many,
and not only states, but also the Committee on the Rights of the Child,
UNICEF, academia and child rights CSOs that are traditionally focusing
on the economic, social and cultural rights of children.
When it comes to the fundamental
freedoms of children, there is not a specialised CSO advancing the topic
at all levels, and international human rights CSOs working on civil and
political rights in general do not integrate a child rights-based
approach in their work. There is still a big gap out there that Child
Rights Connect is trying to fill through the angle of children human
rights defenders.
. What further responses are needed?.
Mieke: I think the
challenges are to make sure we get enough allies among civil society, in
other fields, such as women’s rights organisations and disability
organisations.
It’s also a question of resources,
because if you continually have to be on social media to respond or
share your stories, it takes a lot of time and human resources to do
that work and you need funding to do this, so that’s also a big
challenge. The need for measures to straighten media literacy is also
crucial. We really need to find foundations and organisations that are
able to support us and fund our work.
And then there is the challenge of
getting states to speak up. Now we are trying to get the EU on board, to
have a louder voice and tell states that they should support civil
society in campaigning for children’s rights.
Ilaria: I think we have
started, but we need to do more to connect children’s rights to human
rights and work more closely with human rights CSOs and actors. I think
the collaboration we’ve had with CIVICUS is emblematic. The Committee on
the Right of the Child’s Day of General Discussion, held every two
years in Geneva, helps. The 2018 Day on the theme of ‘protecting and
empowering children as human rights defenders’ was an opportunity to
strengthen the collaboration not only with CIVICUS but also with Amnesty
International, International Service for Human Rights and other human
rights CSOs.
We need to continue to make everyone
understand what it means to apply a child rights-based approach. There
are still too many who approach children as a solely vulnerable group or
child rights as a theme and not as something that relates to
everything, or that is impacted on by all human rights work.
Our work on children human rights
defenders is helping this by making children be recognised as civil
society actors and making all under-18 human rights defenders be
recognised as children. However, we need to do more to clarify how to
strike the balance between the protection and empowerment of children
who act as defenders.
We keep hearing that children shouldn’t
be exposed to risk by being called ‘defenders’ because it is a sensitive
terminology, and we keep explaining that of course this must be taken
into account for specific contexts, but it’s not an excuse for
overlooking children’s civil and political rights. So we need to be sure
we are taking criticisms in the right way, and addressing them
appropriately.
Going back to the family rights issue, I
think there is a need to also stress and clarify the positive role of
families within the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and also say
loudly that it’s not that human rights organisations are against
families, which is one of the main claims made by anti-rights groups,
and be clear that the existing human rights framework does give them
certain rights, along with responsibilities and duties. One of our
members had encouraged the Committee on the Rights of the Child to hold a
Day of General Discussion on the role of parents and families in the
realisation of children’s rights, with the objective of clarifying how
states can best support parents and families in all their forms in order
to ensure a healthy and nurturing family environment for children, but
this wasn’t yet followed up by the Committee. But we are still exploring
and working on this idea to help advance a positive discourse that
counters anti-rights attacks.
.What support, including from other parts of civil society, would most help make a difference to child rights?.
Ilaria: I would say
what would help us the most would be to mainstream effectively the
protection, promotion and fulfilment of child rights in general. We
welcome very much the roundtables between the OHCHR civic space unit and
Geneva-based CSOs that CIVICUS is starting to organise. We participated
recently and are really keen to use this to advance the mainstreaming
of child rights within the UN human rights system, which is a big
challenge.
Children and child rights are not yet
taken seriously. We are really far from being there, and we are fighting
constantly at all levels to be heard and for children’s views to be
considered, because in many cases children are just given the space to
talk for the sake of giving them a face and then nothing happens with
the recommendations and the things they share. There is still a lot to
do here and this should be a multi-stakeholder joint effort.
