Our children should have the right to have a say

The children’s referendum is looming. In the next few days, the people of Ireland will be asked to vote on the rights of children in the country. It has been interesting to watch the progress of the debate in the last few weeks, owing to the massive amount of information and disinformation circulating in the media. It is also very interesting to note who has placed their flags in the pro and anti camps.

 

In the last couple of weeks, I have been receiving emails from those who are in favour and those who are against the proposal. It has been very revealing to further investigate the groups who are sending these emails. In the main, I have been extremely disturbed by the content of some of the websites established and run by the ultra-Catholic or pro-life groups who are campaigning for a no vote on the issue.

At the heart of this debate are the rights of children. Both sides are at pains to claim that they are the sole spokesperson for the rights of the child but both cannot be correct. Unfortunately, both sides can have some claim to truth in this situation because there is an element of opinion that must be considered.

At the launch of the no campaign, Maria Mhic Mheanmain, a spokeswoman for Parents for Children, stated that both sides do claim to have the best interests of children at heart but merely disagree on the best way to protect them. For this reason, it has been interesting to view some of the statements being issued by the no campaign.

The referendum is being painted as an attack on the family as an entity when it is patently clear to anyone who wishes to read the proposed amendments that this is simply not the case.

One particularly dangerous group, to my mind, is one calling itself Human Life International (Ireland). Along with an eight-point prayer campaign for the downfall of the referendum, the group’s website has claims about vaccination jabs and autism. This kind of scaremongering has long been proved to be completely incorrect, with no link between vaccines and autism ever having been shown.

For a group spreading this kind of information, which could ultimately lead to the death of children, to claim that they have the best interests of children at heart, is laughable. Vaccines in childhood are of extreme importance in the protection of children and to suggest that parents should be in any way disinclined to have their children vaccinated is irresponsible in the extreme.

On the yes side, one of the main voices in the campaign has been Barnardos. This organisation has for many years been a voice for vulnerable children and worked tirelessly for their protection. It is not difficult to know which side to believe in the debate.

The Government does not call a referendum lightly. It is an expensive process that leads to conflict and disagreement in society. In this case, the Government must be commended for taking the rights of children seriously enough to hold this vote. It is also heartening to see there is cross-party consensus on the issue.

For far too many years, the rights of children were ignored in Ireland and the holding of this vote hopefully marks a change in that trend. The State needs to protect the rights of children as the future of the nation.

By holding this referendum now, a message is being sent to the next generation that their elders do indeed care about them and believe in their protection. In legislating for the rights of children, an understanding is being shown that not all adults are functional in the way that they should be.

This legislation will ensure that if they are not protecting the wellbeing of their children, then the children will not suffer because of the status of their parents as married adults. That a status of this kind has negatively impacted in children’s wellbeing in the past is an unfortunate thing but recognising it and addressing it is a worthy endeavour.

In some small way the decision to change the Constitution in regards to this issue marks another move along the road away from the terrible past that was reality in Ireland for such a long time. The power of the Church has finally begun to be tackled, although as is clear once again in this referendum, the problem has not been entirely excised.

If this referendum is passed it should represent another sign to the Church that the people of Ireland are no longer subordinate to that corrupt institution and will not be told how to live their lives by its authority.

Children, those little humans we come together to procreate, who we love with a kind of blindness which borders on irrationality, should be given the right to be heard, to have a say in their future. For far too long in Ireland, children have been the victims of horrible abuse and neglect at the hands of the State through the willingness to ignore the actions of the Church and families.

These proxy social groupings and organisations have been responsible for grievous crimes and the child has, until now, been unable to have a voice in the prosecution of the crimes. By placing the rights of the child in the Constitution in an explicit way, those rights will be enshrined and rightly so.