Referendum on Rights of the Child

As the speakers on the TONIGHT show of TV3 on 23/08/12 so rightly said, the proposed Rights of the Child Referendum here in Ireland has been a contentious issue from the outset.

We can say with cautious certainty that those on both sides of this debate have what they see as the best interests of the child at heart. While those in favour believe that this referendum would grant greater protection to children by offering them a system outside the family structure which can hear their otherwise un-heard cries for help, those against would assert that voting for this referendum would begin a slippery-slope situation in which children will be taken from their parents into care for the most trivial and non-legitimate of reasons. This is not idle scaremongering: it has already happened many times in the US and elsewhere.

For example, as David Quinn explained to the speakers on the TONIGHT show on 23/08/12, a certain American girl under the age of 18 was uploading what her parents deemed inappropriate pictures of herself onto the internet and so her parents forbade her from attending the school tour as a disciplinary measure. However, the child rang her help-line and the state insisted she attend the school tour despite what the parents had to say about her inappropriate images.

This is a classic example where this referendum will lead in Ireland – the complete undermining of the authority of parents, with the Sate legally empowered to take their children away from their homes and place them in State Care if the parents so much as withhold the child’s mobile phone until the child’s behaviour improves.

We must remind ourselves that children cannot always see the big picture when something annoys or hurts them within their family structure. The whole reason for disciplining a child is because the parent loves that child and is trying to form their character to enable them to lead good and responsible lives once they are old enough to stand on their own two feet. I for one am grateful to my parents for using their legitimate authority and judgment to correct me in various ways when I misbehaved, although at the time when I was a child, I was not mature enough to appreciate their judgment.

I believe it is in fact a sub-conscious psychological relief to a child to know it can’t get anything it wants at any time because we all have an innate knowledge as children that our parents are there to guide and protect us, not by letting us get away with any sort of behaviour, destructive or otherwise, but by carefully moulding us into caring and responsible citizens.

But what about cases of serious child abuse or neglect within the family? The Irish Constitution as it stands on this matter already provides one of the best systems of protection for children in the world, as is acknowledged both inside and outside this State. The recent highly-publicised cases of child neglect or abuse were due to failure to implement the legislation already in existence here, not a failure of the laws as they already are. We must beware of over-reacting and adopting this ‘Declaration of the Rights of the Child’ which furthers an extreme liberal agenda, rather than protecting each citizen, particularly children.

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