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athena
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Post: #1  Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 10:12 am Post subject: Child Rights |
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The bible did not radically change the sorry condition of childhood. It is technology and economic abundance that changed the sorry condition of childhood. As we become aware of countries that have yet to develop the technological and economic bases necessary for the social consciousness of protecting children, I think we should be aware of our own history of child abuse, and what made capitalism succeed.
The new standard of child rights was set by a UN committee, and is changing laws in several nations, including the US. In the US, particularly laws regarding parental custody of children have been changed as a result of the new standard of child rights. I have strong concerns about the increased involvement of government in the middle of our families, and it is interesting to me that was started on the International level. This discussion could go in different directions.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_the_Rig hts_of_the_Child
The Convention deals with the child-specific needs and rights. It requires that states act in the best interests of the child. This approach is different from the common law approach found in many countries that had previously treated children and wives as possessions or chattels, ownership of which was often argued over in family disputes. In many jurisdictions, properly implementing the Convention requires an overhaul of child custody and guardianship laws, or, at the very least, a creative approach within the existing laws |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_rights_movement
Thomas Spence's The Rights of Infants (1796) is an early English-language assertion of the natural rights of children.
In the USA, the Children's Rights Movement was born in the 1800s with the orphan train. In the big cities, when a child's parents died or were extremely poor, the child frequently had to go to work to support himself and/or his family. Boys generally became factory or coal workers, and girls became prostitutes or saloon girls, or else went to work in a sweat shop. All of these jobs paid only starvation wages.
In 1852, Massachusetts required children to attend school. In 1853, Charles Brace founded the Children's Aid Society, which worked hard to take street children in. The following year, the children were placed on a train headed for the West, where they were adopted, and often given work. By 1929, the orphan train stopped running altogether, but its principles lived on.
The National Child Labor Committee, an organization dedicated to the abolition of all child labor, was formed in the 1890s. It managed to pass one law, which was struck down by the Supreme Court two years later for violating a child's right to contract his work. In 1924, Congress attempted to pass a constitutional amendment that would authorize a national child labor law. This measure was blocked, and the bill was eventually dropped. It took the Great Depression to end child labor nationwide; adults had become so desperate for jobs that they would work for the same wage as children. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act which, amongst other things, placed limits on many forms of child labor. [3]
Now that child labor had been effectively eradicated in parts of the world, the movement turned to other things, but it again stalled when World War II broke out and children and women began to enter the work force once more. With millions of adults at war, the children were needed to help keep the country running. In Europe, children served as couriers, intelligence collectors, and other underground resistance workers in opposition to Hitler's regime. |
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Scott
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| Post: #2 Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 11:21 pm Post subject: |
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I'm not sure which laws and policies in terms of child rights are best for the children and which policies are most conducive to freedom. With competent, sane adults it is at least easy to define freedom and to thus let them take care of themselves. With children--as well as the insane and to some degree animals--I think the main problem is consensuality. Are we protecting children's freedom and giving them rights by denying them self-responsibility and statutorily disregarding their ability to consent? In some cases I think almost everybody would answer yes, such as in extreme cases of statutory rape (e.g. sex between a 50-year-old pervert and a 8-year-old kid that is consensual in a non-statutory sense). But in other cases it is not so clear. For instance, how does it make sense to deny a 20-year-old the right to choose whether or not to drink alcohol but to give that right to a 21-year-old? What if this was taken to even more of an extreme and a 20-year-old's ability to consent and be self-responsible was made equal to that of a 5-year-old, or a 5-year-old's made equal to that of a pet?
Of course, many times when people arguing for one side of an issue of is claiming to support child rights, the other side is not opposing so-called "child rights," but supporting 'parenting rights.' Calling it an argument about 'child rights' is misleading in that case because the argument usually isn't about whether or not to let the child have self-responsibility and the statutory ability to consent (i.e. "rights"); the argument is instead about whether to let the specific parents/guardians decide on the child's behalf or the government. I do not think either is more conducive to 'child rights' but I think a little of both allows for checks and balances on each other to prevent abuse. The government can protect the child from the parents, and the parents can protect the child from the government. Examples of these types of issues where 'government rights' are competing with 'parents' rights' include whether to let parents decide if their children can be around smoke in a car or for the government to decide for the children. But this is not an issue of child's rights; it's parents vs. government.
In contrast, an example of an issue of child's rights would be the issue of when a child is old enough to legally have the power to consent--or refuse--to be in a car with smoke, which would make putting him in a car against his will as criminal as forcing an adult into a car against his will. But in some cases--because they are not always competent--increasing children's rights doesn't make much sense, such as in the example of the statutory rape of very young children. This can vary by issue and by age-group. Even more, it can vary from child to child. For instance, any given 11-year-old could be smarter, more mature and more competent to choose for himself than a certain stupid, immature, incompetent 15-year-old.
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athena
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| Post: #3 Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 9:12 am Post subject: |
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Interesting child's rights verses parents rights. This came up when I was a on committee determining school policy. At first I assumed, if a school were acting out in school and being violent, the school should have the child see a counselor. The goal would be to resolve the behavior problem.
Someone pointed out, some parents would object to their child being sent to a counselor. We lived in a community where some people saw nothing wrong with fist fights, nor would they object if their child were unpleasant with the teacher. We determined while it is the school's responsibility to socialize children and protect them from violent behavior, the parent had the right to refuse counseling for the child. |
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Scott
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| Post: #4 Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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| athena wrote: |
| Someone pointed out, some parents would object to their child being sent to a counselor. We lived in a community where some people saw nothing wrong with fist fights, nor would they object if their child were unpleasant with the teacher. We determined while it is the school's responsibility to socialize children and protect them from violent behavior, the parent had the right to refuse counseling for the child. |
Part of my point is that I think we risk misleading ourselves if we call that an issue of child's rights. In that case, it's parents' rights vs the schools' rights (i.e. the government's rights), which only comes up once we've already taken the right to decide for himself away from the child.
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OTavern
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| Post: #5 Posted: Sat Nov 28, 2009 4:25 pm Post subject: Re: Child Rights |
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| athena wrote: |
| The bible did not radically change the sorry condition of childhood. It is technology and economic abundance that changed the sorry condition of childhood. |
This premise is faulty. Some may claim that technological change, globalization and the increasingly economic hold that the military-industrial complex has on human beings all over the globe has radically dehumanized the lives of children and humans generally. The manufactured "dependence" that families have on "goods" and on money as a means of barter has created an addictive dependence on corporations and governments to provide for needs. Humans might be said to be enslaved to corporate dictates and direction. Children are expendable commodities and are part of the trade network that controls how families go about surviving. Given a choice between "selling" a child to a business owner and the probability of the rest of the family losing a home or starving to death means that business owners and large corporations have a ready supply of cheap child labour.
| athena wrote: |
| As we become aware of countries that have yet to develop the technological and economic bases necessary for the social consciousness of protecting children, I think we should be aware of our own history of child abuse, and what made capitalism succeed. |
This is a prejudiced view of what you would view as "backward" countries. Most of the countries you are speaking of that do not have a stable economy have had their "primitive" value systems (family and child centred ethics) de-stabilized by technological encroachment on their traditional lifestyles. This has created a de-stabilized value system. Valuing of children in these cultures is not a "new" phenomenon, if anything it is rebound phenomenon after seeing that materialism and an economy centred culture is empty and de-values children.
It has not been technological and economic advances that have raised social consciousness.These have very much contributed to devaluation of children. China, after the communist revolution clearly made children expendable and valued only in terms of stability to economic development.
If you believe the worth of children is somehow based upon the economy and technology, I guess you can hold to your conclusion.
Personally, I believe technology and economy are only a means to providing a good life to human beings. The value of these two spheres of human development should be judged by their contribution to improving all human life. Children are a kind of "indicator" species on the real quality of life. If children are being sacrificed as a means to better quality, there is something inherently wrong in such a system. Human worth should not be judged by contribution to these two "artificial" monolithic deities. High quality human lives are possible and indeed more likely under primitive and "close to earth" conditions. Technology and economy only makes life quality much more complex, difficult and certainly no more secure.
Your presumption is that children were not valued prior to the industrial or technological revolutions. I submit, children were much more valued in many societies. One clear indicator is the use of abortion to destroy life for the sake of goods that is rampant in much of the modern world. Infant sacrifice was practiced in ancient times, but not universally so, and, even then, with the understanding that the life being sacrificed was invaluable. Today, life appears as an expendable commodity unless it somehow supports the economy or acquisition of more goods.
Laws ensuring proper treatment of children would only be needed during times when proper treatment is being jeopardized. A law against murder does not make sense in a society where individuals have absolutely no inclination to kill others. Such a law would be unnecessary. Laws are only formed when and where rights are jeopardized. It would seem that the very fact that laws safeguarding children's rights are seen to be more necessary in these times is that children are being more and more exploited and there is, therefore, a growing need to safeguard children against losing their rights.
Your analysis seems skewed. |
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athena
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| Post: #6 Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 11:42 am Post subject: |
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O'Traven as you said in another post
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The Holocaust is not a simple concept like 1+1 = 2, it is a complex issue involving many individuals, motives, ideologies and ethical implications.
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so too is the subject of improving our human condition more complex.
I think your argument is lacking in some important information. For sure you do not know me very well, because no one expresses more concern about our present education for technology causing major social problems, such as the break down of the family order, and moving us in the direction of NAZI Germany.
And I did say capitalism has lead to child abuse, so what is my prejudice?
On the other hand, there is a historical bases for my argument that technology has improved the condition of humanity more than religion has. Religion just did not improve the condition of humanity, as well as technological advances have.
The following is an explanation of how chemistry radically changed our position with God. Previous science gave us an increasing knowledge of what is. Chemistry is the knowledge of changing what is. This knowledge has doubled our life span, giving us a large and growing population of long lived people. That is, no longer is man at the mercy of God, but can play God when it comes to life and death.
The thrill when pasteurization made milk save was huge. It meant thousands of more children would survive childhood. Before this, the technology to grow more food, decreasing the numbers who died of conditions related to malnutrition in the winter months. This freedom from starvation, had already moved our thinking in the direction of thinking of God as a loving God, rather than a punishing one. With this change in our perception of God, parents have moved from beating the evil out of their children, to being loving and nurturing. And a growing number of people are questioning the rightness of wars, that Christian leaders have called the will of God. These are major changes in our consciousness, resulting from developing technology.
I am including a site, that explains the impact of chemistry, to verify what I have said.
http:
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| //www.drees.nl/publications%20eng/Zygon%20sept%202002%20Playing%20God%20Yes.pdf |
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