KUALA LUMPUR, July 28 (Bernama) — The Convention of the Rights of the Child, often referred to as CRC, adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on 20th Nov 1989, protects the rights of every children by setting standards in legal, civil, health care, education and social services.

According to Youssouf Oomar, Unicef (United Nations Children Fund) representative to Malaysia, the Convention is the tool that has pushed, propelled and pressurised many countries to relook at what they are doing for children, in terms of constitutions and also their laws.

“The CRC is for any child, anywhere, anytime, regardless whether the child has weaknesses, whether the child is disabled, the child has the same right as every other child.

“As responsible parties, we are to make sure that the right of the child is respected. We want the child to develop in the best developed condition. Unicef is mandated by the UN General Assembly to monitor the translation of every article of the Convention into concrete actions. That is the key,” he told Bernama in an interview at his office in Wisma UN, Jalan Dungun here recently.

BETTER TIMES

Oomar who is also Unicef’s special representative to Brunei Darussalam added that the CRC is one of the key reasons that children these days are faring much better as compared to what they were facing years before.

Unicef, he said, has also developed strategies, one of which, was to work with everyone, in getting them to understand that the child is a concern for every human being on this planet.

“Any government, any NGOs, any religious societies including the Muslim ummah have understood that we need to invest more in our children, in terms of their health, education and care.

“That is why also today you see more people coming out to talk about abuses, wives being beaten, children being beaten. This is a tedious and relentless effort so that we can work together with everyone to make them understand that we have to be a part of the process if we want to build a better society for us.

“I think everyone has realised this but that does not mean we are there. There are still a lot of bad people around, preying on children, kidnapping them and hurting the children,” said Oomar.

PRIORITISE EDUCATION

Citing education as an example, Unicef, he said started big programmes around the world to encourage and push children to go to school including getting governments to make school as compulsory and free.

“We realised there are so many children who are out of school and nobody cared. But when came the Convention, we said the child has the right to development and one of the best ways to helping the development of the child is to get the child to school.

“We make sure every child is in school, even when they are in refugee camps. A school is a good place to get a child to understand cultures as there are many children from different background and this promotes social integration. They can grow together, learning from each other. It promotes better understanding and eventually respect,” said Oomar.

A child, he added, can also become the social change agent as the learning process in school would empower a child to better understand his or her surrounding.

The CRC also, he said has changed people’s perception on certain unacceptable practices involving children.

“There was a time when children were just getting beaten, raped. Boys were getting abused, kidnapped and nobody was doing anything or children were just sent to work (child labour)and exploited. People took this as just being culturally accepted.

“As a result we have seen a lot of things happening. For the first time ever, we had fewer children dying from diseases and today we have more than 60 per cent of children around the world attending school.

“People are realising that the more attention we paid to children, the better would be the quality of our development in 10 years, 15 years,” he said.

WORTHY INVESTMENT

According to Oomar, countries like China, India and Malaysia have been able to push their economies to grow rapidly and at a very sustainable rate because they invested in a child.

“India has a huge population and China has even a larger population while Malaysia, a medium country with about 28 million population. In terms of education policies, they have some similarities where investing in a child has been the key factor in the success of the development policies.

“I think I can say that whatever being the conditions now let us remind ourselves that history has shown us that the day we reduced our investment in children, we will start realising things would grow bad and worst. So whatever is the condition, lets keep budgeting for the child,” stressed Oomar.

Elaborating further on Malaysia’s achievement in education, he said, the country’s investment in that field has definitely helped its economic and social development.

Malaysia, he added, is an extraordinary example in terms of its achievement now compared to 20 or 40 years ago.

“But now you need to push the bar higher as you gear towards 2020, of becoming a first world country. It is not very far, only another 10 years.

“Remember a child who is 10 years now will be 20 years then so the bar is high in terms of time in the life of a child. And the child grows very fast, the brain develops very fast and if we do not mould and carve the brain in such a way that the child would become a future leader, an effective and responsible leader, that vision will not be achieved.

“That same child in 10 years time, if he or she is not given a better world or a better Malaysia, they will look back and say you mess up my future,” he said.

MORE COMMITMENT

Omar said children from 13 years of age and above should be given more chance to speak their mind.

As he emphasised, “it is part of the Convention that we want to listen a bit more to children, listen to their views, start having a dialogue with them, share their views and let them express their opinion and understand that they are part of the development process.

“These are some of the mistakes we learnt from the past when we did not listen to our children by just telling them that their job is just to go to school. But if you do not tell them now, they will go to the Internet to get any answer and they may pick up something which may not be the answer,” he argued.

In saying Malaysia is on the right track of development, he described social problems still plaguing the country as similar to what is being faced by other middle-income nations.

He said Malaysia has successfully reduced the number of people dying from preventable diseases and also increased the percentage of children going to school which has crossed 97 per cent.

“But still, you need to be concerned for the other 3.0 per cent. Who are they? Where are they? Why they are not going to school because this is their right?

“Malaysia also has the issue of people living below the poverty line. Who are these poor? Where are they? You also have the city poor category. Again we have to understand why they are poor. Is it because they have left their villages because of the strong pull to the cities?

“I know the Malaysian government is addressing these issues. It is in the Ninth Malaysian Plan and there are some very good signs which can help to sort out these issues,” he said.

CHALLENGES ABOUND

Almost 20 years after the CRC was adopted and despite some major improvement, Oomar said the ‘journey’ of the Convention is far from over.

“We are not there yet. Yes, we have been able to advance the child agenda. We have learnt so much in advancing that agenda, we have learnt some of the good practices, some of the weaknesses. We have seen failures but that does not mean we are discouraged.

“For many reasons, the road is still long. The world is evolving. As you keep addressing problems, you need to prioritise and there are also newly emerging issues that you need to address at the same time,” explained Oomar.

He explained that Unicef has been implementing the CRC in stages as it did not have the means to do everything in a short time.

Despite having almost US$2 billion for its global programmes, Unicef still needs a lot more. Oomar explained that most of the funds goes to cater for emergencies in countries such as Congo, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

At times, he said, a simple conflict, civil strife or a natural calamity like the Tsunami could destroy all the progress and benefits accomplished by Unicef.

“When there is a crisis that is where we have to cater for the most vulnerable group because this is the category of human who cannot fend for themselves.

“We make sure that whatever is the condition, and Unicef which helps a lot of countries around the world, the child still goes to school and there would be food in the school. At least this would attracts poor parents to send their kids to school.

“These are some of the things that we are grasping. It is not easy especially when there is an economic crisis as donors who used to give money would not give so much now,” said Oomar.

Oomar also spoke about climatic change which to him should be a concern for all as changes in the climate would affect the lives of all people.

“We have suffered from the Tsunami, we have seen floods, we have seen droughts. We have seen the rising level of sea and impact of global warming. We have to make this as part of our concern and say I am contributing to all these so I have to change my behaviour.

“This brings me to the second challenge, which is behavioral change. This could only be done through education and social mobilisation. The other challenge is attitude change. We have to work together to respond to those challenges,” said Oomar.
Source: BERNAMA

By Melati Mohd Ariff

This is the seventh from a series of features on social issues, focussing on children.

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