Putting Kids First.

A group of 34 non-governmental agencies condemned Canada, in November 1999, for not living up to its commitments under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child because daycare and early education programs are inadequate. There are other disturbing rights violations in the spotlight too

In 1997, child-welfare officials across Canada reported a growing number of child-abuse cases. No one was sure whether the incidence of abuse was growing or simply the public's awareness of it. In Montreal alone, in a four-year period, the city's anglophone child-protection agency (the Batshaw Youth and Family Centres) had 65% more confirmed cases of physical abuse in which the agency seized custody of the child -- up from 108 cases in 1992 to 178 in 1996. The Children's Aid Society (CAS) of Metropolitan Toronto reported a 10% to 15% increase in the number of child-abuse cases over the year before the report appeared. The CAS credited the increase largely to greater awareness, which has prompted more people to report problems. The Society also links the abuse to unemployment and the financial stresses that places on families, as well as the use of drugs such as crack cocaine and heroin.

New Brunswick's child protection officials were also under harsh criticism after two toddlers were neglected to the point of death. The government later admitted that it needed to put the welfare of children ahead of the desire to keep families together, and that, in order to do that, it needed to hire more social workers.

The following year, in 1998, Crown attorney John Scott said Ontario's child-protection system needed sweeping changes. He was speaking at an inquest into the death of a six-year-old girl who was killed by her mother's mentally ill boyfriend. Mr. Scott said the system needed to end custodial rights quickly when parents are abusive, neglectful, and incompetent so their children can be adopted. He said the province's 12-year experiment with supporting troubled families rather than taking their children away had failed. Mr. Scott made several recommendations: he suggested, for example, that, for children under three in abusive situations, cases should be processed quickly (within one year) through court. He said that the definition of a child "in need of protection" should be broadened. It should include mental, emotional, or addiction problems in a parent, exposure to violence against others in the home, and chronic neglect or risk of neglect, not just physical or sexual abuse, or imminent risk of such abuse. Mr. Scott added that Children's Aid social workers should place the child's need above building trust with parents, making unannounced home visits, and questioning relatives, neighbours, and doctors about what's happening in a child's home.

By the end of 1998, Ontario's Chief Coronet also agreed that the safety of children would take precedence over the rights of the family. Such a move would reverse the policy that made keeping families together the primary goal of CAS workers. The decision came after a report was released on six inquests into the deaths of children who were clients of children's aid societies. The inquests had already led to the government announcing sweeping changes to the Child Protection Act. In addition, the province promised to add $90 million to its budget for child protection. There was also a commitment to develop a common database as a central source of information on families with a history of serious problems involving children's aid societies.

The same year, the Human Rights Commission released a scathing report on Quebec's child-protection services. The province's youth-protection services "failed miserably" to stop the severe family violence in one family in particular. This involved a gruesome case in which a man abused two women and at least four of his seven children over a 13-year period, despite numerous reports to authorities. The Human Rights report concluded "that the children's right to receive adequate social services was violated." The commission further noted that the inadequate services were the result of a combination of factors including lack of specialized training, the heavy case loads of social workers, mismanagement of information, and no clear intervention plan to deal with child abuse.

British Columbia's child-protection system was recently overhauled after a string of tragedies that were seen largely as a result of bureaucratic blundering and insufficient resources. In 1998, the province's Children's Commissioner reported on the deaths of 24 children in 1997, outlining repeated failures to protect children at risk.

"Inadequate risk assessments, coupled with failed foster-home placements, left these children with few supports and little protection," she said, adding that the children "were not provided the love and protection to which they had a right."

Child exploitation goes beyond the birth family. Some troubled, older children become victims of abuse in the foster homes, group homes, and child-treatment centres that are supposed to be helping them recover from parental abuse. Some have experienced racial slurs, threats, forced isolation, and physical and emotional abuse that only deepens the scars they received in their own dysfunctional families.

Inevitably, some teenagers turn to the streets where they become involved in prostitution and/or drugs. Their lot is not a pretty one: their lives continue to be ruled by abusive adults -- pimps, customers, drug dealers -- whose only interest is in exploiting them.

Federal law forbids Canadians from buying or attempting to buy sex from a person under 18 years of age. A conviction carries a penalty of up to five years in jail. However, a 1999 report, Painting by Numbers, compiled for a Vancouver social agency, found some provinces are better at policing the law than others. The report criticized British Columbia for being lax in enforcing the federal child prostitution law. The study found that Quebec did the most effective job of charging offenders, B.C. lagged far behind, and Ontario was between the two.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. At Quebec's Youth Summit in February 2000, about 1,000 university and college students started a peaceful demonstration, protesting against the exclusion of antipoverty youth organizations three-day summit. However, things turned nasty when police and the students clashed: police used tear gas and billy clubs to disperse the crowd, some of whom retaliated by throwing Molotov cocktails, rocks, and billiard balls at police. Research this event and discuss the rights of the students versus the rights of the police as representatives of the community.

2. There is some controversy over whether or not parents should be allowed by law to spank their children. In 1979, Sweden became the first European country legally to ban the hitting and smacking of children. Other countries with similar laws include Finland, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Cyprus, Croatia, and Latvia. Have students do a report on the issue, explaining the dews of those who support such a law and those who do not.

3. Organize a debate on whether or not Canada is in full compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Websites

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child - http:// www.unicef.org/crc/crc.htm

Natural Child Project in Canada- http://www. naturalchild.org/

Project NoSpank-http:// nospank.org/

Human Rights Internet - http://www.hri.ca/children/

PUTTING IT IN WRITING

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is touted as the most comprehensive human rights document in history. The Convention was unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly on 20 November 1989 and has now been ratified by 191 countries. The heart of the Convention is four articles setting out its main principles:

* No discrimination against children.

* In all matters concerning children, the best interests of the child shall be primary.

* The right of the child to life, survival, and development.

* The right of the child to express views freely in all matters affecting him or her.

A series of world conferences has led to new programs to help protect children. For example, a process is underway to add a section setting a minimum age for military recruitment and participation in armed conflict. Another campaign is trying to find a way to end the sexual exploitation of children.

Some countries have appointed ombudsmen who have been given the mandate of protecting childrens' rights. Norway was the first; it was followed by Costa Rica, Australia, Russia, and Austria. As of the end of 2000, Canada had not appointed a children's ombudsman.

At least 22 countries have incorporated children's rights into their constitutions -- these include Brazil, Ecuador, Ethiopia, and South Africa, but not Canada.

Several parliaments (not Canada's) have enacted laws and national budgets to clearly identify spending on programs for children; Brazil, Sri Lanka, and South Africa have done this. Norway has gone further and now publishes a "children's annex" to its annual budget.

Sweden has adopted a bill to ensure the visibility of the child's perspective in decisionmaking. In Belgium, the parliament monitors government policy for its impact on the rights of children. Canada has made no moves to respect the rights and opinions of children in its legislation.

HELPING PARENTS HELP KIDS

Headstart is one of the few early-intervention programs in Canada designed to help neglected, disadvantaged, and often abused children by focussing plenty of attention on their parents. The four-day-a-week program was started in Moncton, New Brunswick with the idea that the best way to help kids in the long run is to help their parents. For the kids there are various activities, from story time to brushing their teeth, and nutritious meals. For the parents there is group and individual counselling, support, literacy classes, cooking school, and a sense of community. They learn appropriate disciplinary action, nutrition, hygiene, and the importance of structure and routine in a child's life. They have mandatory evening courses and group sessions to talk about their problems, and they must attend 75% of the meetings to stay in the program. Parents who find work or go back to school sometimes move to one of the 12 houses Headstart rents to families that are trying to break the cycle of poverty. As one single parent -- the only one among her siblings who is not on social assistance - said, "It was like the family I never had."

About 95% of the parents who take their children to the Moncton Headstart program have experienced physical or sexual abuse themselves, and some have few life skills.

An Alberta report which also found that its children had too few services, said the problem was a result of insufficient funding. The shortage of money was particularly bad for programs for preschool children and their families despite the fact that early spending results in later savings. According to the 1999 preliminary report: "The research consistently points out that the `best return' on the investment of public dollars for children at risk is yielded by services that help children before the onset of significant antisocial behaviours." At the time, the government had almost no programs for preschool children and ministries placed a tow priority on prevention services. There also were few programs for adolescents with mental problems or in foster care.

AWAY FROM HOME

It's probably never crossed the minds of most parents or teenagers that foreign exchange trips could be unsafe. In 1998, two British police officers uncovered more than 500 cases of sexual and physical abuse of international exchange students. They found everything from a host family feeding their exchange student nothing but bread and jam to cases where convicted pedophiles host exchange students so they can have free and easy access to children.

Only three of the 500 cases ever reported the problems to the police. One of the officers said: "Because of the distance from home, the strange environment, and the difficulty reporting abuse to begin with, these abuses can be on without anyone knowing."

FACT FILE

The 245 social workers at Toronto's Children's Aid Society worked with almost 23,000 kids in 1998 - 3,321 of them in care.

In October 2000, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that social workers don't need a legal warrant to seize children they think are in danger.

In a national vote on what they see as their most important rights, Canadian elementary and secondary students chose the right to a family as Number One, followed by food and shelter, health, education, rest and play, protection from harm, non-discrimination, sharing opinions, name and nationality, and own culture.