Kerala - Malappuram   

‘State has vital role in upholding child rights’

Per Wickenberg

MALAPPURAM: The government has a significant role in supporting parents in bringing up their children. The State and parents have equal responsibility to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury, abuse, neglect, maltreatment or exploitation, said Per Wickenberg, associate professor and director of Sociology of Law, Lund University, Sweden.

He was delivering a Frontier Extension lecture on ‘Children are the future: taking child rights convention serious in education’ at the Calicut University on Friday.

Prof. Wickenberg pointed out that the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), adopted by the U.N. in 1989 and ratified this year by all countries, except the U.S. and Somalia, stipulates that it is the responsibility of the State to ensure that the child gets free and compulsory primary education. “The administration of school discipline should reflect the child’s human dignity,” he said.

The CRC lays thrust on focusing education in such a way as to be directed at developing the child’s personality and talents, preparing the child for active life as an adult, fostering respect for basic human rights, he said.

Article 12 of the CRC ensures the child’s right to express an opinion and to have that opinion taken into account in any matter or procedure affecting the child, he said. Quoting Article 13, Prof. Wickenberg said children should have the right to freedom of expression, including freedom to seek and receive information and ideas of all kinds.

Article 14 guarantees the child’s freedom of thought, conscious, and freedom, he said.

Prof. Wickenberg said that the CRC encapsulated three Ps known as provision, protection and participation. “There should be provision for food, health care, education and social security; protection from maltreatment, neglect, all forms of exploitation; and participation by way of expression and involvement in decision-making,” he said.

Quoting family life educator Dorothy Law Holte, Prof. Wickenberg said that if a child lived with criticism, the child would learn to condemn.

“If a child lives with ridicule, she or he learns to be shy; if a child lives with tolerance, she or he learns to be patient; if a child lives with security, she or he learns to have faith; and if a child lives with acceptance and friendship, she or he learns to find love in the world.”

Calicut University Vice-Chancellor Anwar Jahan Zuberi presided over the function. C. Rajendran, coordinator of the Frontier Lecture programme, welcomed the gathering. C. Naseema, director of the Department of Adult Continuing Education and Extension Services, proposed a vote of thanks.

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