"Helping one child is crucial"

Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn, a graduate of the University of Oxford and the Free University of Brussels; is a barrister of the Middle Temple, London and a professor of law at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. He has taught in institutions in France, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark and Austria.  Prof. Vitit was formerly the executive director of Child Rights ASIANET, a child rights network working in close cooperation with UNICEF. His non governmental work includes production of human rights and child rights materials for educational purposes. He is the chairperson of Thailand’s sub-committee on child rights, National Youth Bureau, which coordinates information on child rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child(CRC). He has published extensively in Thailand and abroad, for local organisations and the UN. Sushma Amatya spoke to him when he was in Kathmandu recently, to participate in the workshop on the design of the reporting process of Nepal on the CRC. The excerpts:

Q: How did you get involved with community work?
A: Bored with life in the West, I wanted to do something challenging. One of my greatest experiences of life was to come back to Thailand and teach in a university there and also to undertake during school holidays, community work with my students. We take up rural development projects in rural, poor parts of Thailand and work with village people. Then I became involved with rights oriented work - human rights, literacy, law, youth training and ultimately child rights - a natural consequence of development work. I also do some voluntary work with the NGOs -  it is an interesting, interconnected mixture of work.

Q: When was the first time you came to Nepal?
A: In the late eighties, I was doing more and more child rights oriented work and in 1990, I was asked by the UN, Human Rights Commission, Geneva, to become UN’s Special Rapporteur for children - to monitor globally the exploitation of children. I did that for four years. In 92-93, I was invited to Nepal to undertake a study on street children. I went to places like Biratnagar, Nepalgunj, and Sindhupalchowk and learnt a lot while preparing the study. There were key concerns like child labour, child bondage, child trafficking - reports of child prostitution was emerging and there were even reports of organ trade.

Q: We all know that only laws cannot help underprivileged children. Where should the initiative come from - how can children be really helped?
A: We need to have a blend ranging from laws and policies, good mechanism to social will, political will, commitment, health work and so on. Very often, when we talk about human rights and child rights; we tend to veer towards the need of laws to protect the humans and the child. That is to certain extent correct, we need to have laws. We all know that many countries have laws that can be used to protect their children to some extent; but very often their system is mired in corruption, confusion, cronyism - there is lack of political will - these are other factors that cannot be dealt by law alone. So we need a variety of interventions including mobilisation, advocacy, socialisation process towards education, networking, good cooperation between various catalysts to exert pressure for action.

Commitments in terms of legal framework are good commitments but we all know very well that challenges in reality are daunting - it means that it requires not only the government personnel but also the whole community enforcing the law. It needs more than law enforcement to educate the village people, to raise their health standards. We need to work with the media, with the private sectors that own the factories to spread the knowledge. It demands a variety of interventions and law of course has to be there as one of the key interventions.

Q: We have a paradox here regarding working children - if they do not work, they starve. What would be the best way to go about this problem?
A: Generally speaking, international position on what it considers the worst forms of child labour such as, bondage, child prostitution, child pornography, trafficking is to stop it. There is no debate on this issue. The children must be got out of the situations, now. However in other situations that are not classified under the worst forms of child labour, such as; family labour, farm labour or sometimes in the factories - if they are not extreme forms of child labour, the approach is to go step by step. In such less extreme cases, we take the graduated approach by phasing out, providing alternatives to the children such as part time schooling and enabling the parents to send the children. This means good planning, good intervention making provisions for other options.

Q: With so many problems surrounding the poor, disadvantaged children, where does one begin?
A: One starts small, with one child. Helping one child is crucial, and of course, it is wonderful if you can save more. Saving everyone, everywhere is the ideal - I would like to do that but it is not possible. But if each one of us were to start with one child, it would have an impact on the future; it is a ripple effect, a chain effect. It starts with the spirit of wanting to save one life, one future.

Q: What would be the best way to reach out to every single unit in the society regarding the rights of the child?
A: You are talking about the issue for which I’m here today. We have an international framework already which advocates the minimum standards to which we should adhere. That framework is the Convention of the Rights of the Child. Basically all countries should try to raise their laws, policies, programmes and practices up to standards stipulated by the Convention. They are basic standards. But how do we make those standards better known to people and ensure that they are involved in the process of improving the lives of children?

The keys are socialisation, dissemination and education. Having all these standards must go hand in hand with broad based education process which means; child rights education, human rights education, literacy - not only in terms of the 3 ‘R’s but also in terms of rights - maybe rights as the fourth R. And that means the need of a campaign involving the key actors to spread the message to everyone; so that they know that they are entitled to these rights. Interventions which help promote these rights are again good laws, policies, programmes, practices, education, advocacy and dissemination.

 Formally speaking, it would be good to have a national curriculum which not only provides for free and compulsory education but also education that includes child rights elements such as information to children and the adults as well, perhaps a hotline telephone number for working children. The message of dissemination has to be much broader than the traditional curriculum. On the non formal programme, you work through village schools,  radio, television and so on - all these means can be used to mobilise the children - in terms of knowledge base to help protect the children.

It has got to be a process that reaches out - in multi lingual materials, using the multi media that are based on the local culture (songs, dances) and by using multi sectors - bringing together people from different walks of life. Government ministries, community based organisations and others can be brought together; and they can all be peer educators. Training of the trainers is very important to create the ripple effect. 

Q: Is fear of law effective to bring about the desired changes? Do we not need more incentive based laws?
A: Some laws are meant to have deterrent impact, so that does work on the fear factor - like the criminal law - the penal code, anti-trafficking law, anti-pedophilia, anti- child pornography, trafficking with criminal sanctions. Every country has those to some extent. I do not think other laws should be based on fear, but should be based on facilitating, motivating commitment; laws that are incentive based and encouraging - like the educational law which facilitates people’s access to school. Laws to enable communities to do child protection work, social development work and so on - those are motivational types of work that are needed. We need to work much more on this.

Q: What is your opinion on the government- Mafia nexus regarding violation of child rights?
A: In relation to child rights the types of intervention are laws, policies, programmes, good practices, mechanisms, resources and information. All countries have those elements to some extent. But very often there is weak enforcement due to corruption and dark economy. We need to build a good transparent core. But in many countries it is that core force that is corrupt and so we get back to square one. In many cases, we do not bring in the best and do not give them enough incentives. It is the crooks in uniform that we have to weed out and there must be sanctions against them; which again is not easy because they have a network to protect them. We need to build a different core of checks and balances around the formal core that includes community watch dogs, NGOs, media and other networks. We need a variety of non formal cores around the formal core.

Q: What roles do values, culture play in creating a healthy society - rich or poor?
A: It gets back to the root of spirit, culture, respect for each other and the way to nurture that culture. I believe that when we talk about human rights, we should start very young - beginning from  age zero. If we start young, we could build a culture of human dignity that maximises as they grow up. Dignity based, child based, rights based education in the broader sense of word, start very young. Children, youth of different age groups and  ethnic groups should come together to bridge the gap. There should be more interaction between various ethnic groups, between rural and urban groups. The bridge will be emotional and spiritual.

 Values should be taught through caring and sharing experiences, they cannot be taught by books alone. When we are working with vulnerable, disadvantaged people, very often they are so advanced spiritually that you realise in the process of developing them, you are getting more developed! Also, the quest for material justice will never be adequate unless you build a moral and spiritual values which ultimately is the basic ingredient of humanity.

Q: What is your opinion on juvenile justice / corporal punishment?
A: A child gets locked up in an adult jail - for doing something perhaps without realising what he is doing. The whole concept is terribly wrong because it does not provide the child with a second chance. The facilities in the detention are not appropriate to children and they often make the children get into a more corrupted trap. Corporal punishment is usually an exercise of brutality rather than instilling a sense of discipline that can be nurtured by other means.

Q: Where should the intervention start regarding child rights?
A: When we talk about what should be done according to a certain framework of a society, it is very much educational, a sense or order, discipline that are super imposed on the children without being sensitive enough to the needs and participation of the child. In paternalistic, negative families, we get a very super imposed structure, brutality without any rational explanation. We have to build a democratic, participatory based home - which is difficult because very often the parents did not grow up in a democratic set up. If parents are found exceeding the norms, for example indulging in brutal corporal punishment, then sanctions have to be there against them. Similar is the case at schools. Of, course, I’m not saying children dictate the rules - that is wrong - the point is to listen to them and to ensure that the children have a say in the rules and regulation. The changes have to start bottoms up. Though it sounds challenging, it is simple. Human rights, dignity, child rights start small with little actions - saving one, respecting one has the multiplier effect. Basically intervention starts with yourself first.