UNICEF Freedom of Thought Poster

I came accross this photograph of a beautiful little orphan girl taken by Noel Gomski (who granted his permission to use this shot). You can see his other photos on Flickr. This photo appears on a web site in the Philippines: http://simplykat.blogspot.com/

Children have the right to freedom of thought and this includes about religious matters.

Catch 22 of saving children from emotional abuse

This is the text of my recent post to Amazon.com's Parenting Discussion Forum:

The catch 22 of religiously inspired child abuse
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Today at 4:15am | Edit Note | Delete
An Amazon Parents forum participant writes:

I think everyone should just chill. The fact of the matter is, parents will teach their children whatever they want and as long as it doesn't fall under abuse as defined by the Dept. of Social Services, there is nothing anyone else can do about it.

BAM! CASE CLOSED
+++++++

Richard replies:

No, the case is far from closed, as you put it. This discussion is about parents subjecting children to harm through actions they control, and indeed are complicit in. The harm is to their child's mental health and emotional well being, leaving aside the gross violation of their personhood. Can you find a state in the country that does not have laws against inflicting emotional abuse on another person? Such laws do exist, but....

No minor child can walk into child protective services and seek help to escape the mind control program they are subjected to. The damage to their intellectual development and emotional health occurs over many years. In the best of circumstances, the crime of inflicting emotional abuse on another person is extremely difficult to prosecute -- even when the abuse is blatant and has no religious overtones. The only persons legally able to speak for a child are the same persons complicit in the abuse. That is the nub of the problem. That is the catch 22.

For anyone reading this that may suspect they know of a child that is being abused, here are the behavioral indications (quoted from the non-profit web page Helpguide.org):

"Behavioral signs. Since emotional child abuse does not leave concrete marks, the effects may be harder to detect. Is the child excessively shy, fearful or afraid of doing something wrong? Behavioral extremes may also be a clue. A child may be constantly trying to parent other children for example, or on the opposite side exhibit antisocial behavior such as uncontrolled aggression. Look for inappropriate age behaviors as well, such as an older child exhibiting behaviors more commonly found in younger children.

Caregiver signs. Does a caregiver seem unusually harsh and critical of a child, belittling and shaming him or her in front of others? Has the caregiver shown anger or issues with control in other areas? A caregiver may also seem strangely unconcerned with a child's welfare or performance. Keep in mind that there might not be immediate caregiver signs. Tragically, many emotionally abusive caregivers can present a kind outside face to the world, making the abuse of the child all the more confusing and scary."

Children have rights that are trampled in the United States by a legal doctrine that favors parents religious free exercise rights over consideration of children's welfare interests. Experts assert this legal doctrine is on weak moral ground because it is based solely on patriarchal tradition, which of course is male privilige written large.

If you examine the history of human rights progress you can see a clear pattern. The starting point is a widespread harmful cultural practice and a legal system that shelters the rights abuses. Slavery was legal because rich white landowners controlled the legal apparatus and they had a financial stake in having slaves. In the South they pointed to their bibles as justification for the practice. The abolition movement started in the mercantile North where the financial stake in agriculture did not exist.

Drunk driving, spousal abuse, miscegenation; and segregation in housing, education and public life, all follow the pattern. Women were denied the right to vote in the USA until 1920. Blacks were subject to Jim Crow. A white male power structure and public indifference fostered these injustices. Recall that most judges were white males until very recently and spousal rape could not be prosecuted. Likewise, the hierarchy of most organized religions is in the hands of white males. Coincidence?

Until women achieve full and complete equality with men imbalances and injustices will continue. Protecting children and advancing women's rights are key to solving many of our problems.

We see the legal system now fosters and protects religious mind control programs. In state legislatures around the country, Christian fascist leaders such as Tony Perkins, Michael Ferris and James Dobson (all are dominionists that would replace our democracy with a theonomy and all are part of the Council for National Policy cabal) were able to bulldoze state legislatures into revoking and revising truancy laws to enable sham homeschools to mushroom. Estimates are that as many as 1.5 million children are sequestered in their own homes and subject to brain washing 24/7. I have posted extensively on this topic.

Adherents, clerics and anyone who gets a paycheck from a church has a financial stake in maintaining the membership of their congregations. All congregations, without exception, must maintain a constant flow of new adherents in the front door as the old members fade away and can no longer chip in the collection plate. Religion is a vast multi-billion dollar enterprise. What business do you know that could allow their customers to die away and not replace them?

Organized religion has adapted the most sophisticated public relations tools known to modern man. According to their PR, society would collapse from moral rot if people were not sitting in the pews listening to and absorbing ancient fables and myths. They trumpet their charitable works, yet some recent studies show that only about five percent of tax exempt donations actually go to charity. The rest is spent maintaining property and I suppose on coffee and cake for the members. Essentially what you have is a social club operated for the benefit of the members at the expense of the tax paying public.

A new facebook group, Abolish tax breaks for faith-based groups, is devoted to countering unfair tax laws that favor groups just because they believe in mythology :

http://www.facebook.com/groups.php?id=1077947340&gv=4#/group.php?gid=48134307000

Corporal punishment key reason for school dropouts

For the complete story go to:

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=78275

LAHORE,
18 May 2008 (IRIN) - Quite often, Bilal Javed, 10, stands opposite the school he once attended and peers past the gates. An able pupil, who excelled at mathematics during his five years in school, Bilal misses lessons. But he has not been to school for four months and says he is "too scared" to venture through the entrance again.

Bilal's father, Asad Javed, 33, explained: "My son was good at his work and we were eager he gain an education. But one day he was beaten so badly by his science teacher, who hit him with a shoe, that he came home badly bruised and in great pain”.

“I had to give him a painkilling tablet so he could sleep," said Asad, who works as a cleaner.

The boy was punished for talking in class. He has, since then, refused to return and his parents say they are helpless.

"We want him to be educated, but we don't want him to be beaten up," said Bilal’s father, who himself went to school for only three years.

According to the Islamabad-based Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) advocating the rights of children, 35,000 high school pupils in Pakistan drop out of the education system each year due to corporal punishment.

Such beatings at schools are also responsible for one of the highest dropout rates in the world, which stands at 50 percent during the first five years of education, according to SPARC.

Multinational, comparative legal study on the rights of children

The Law Library of Congress published this study. For details go to:

http://www.loc.gov/law/help/child-rights/index.html

Ancient civilizations entrusted heads of families with omnipotent authority over their children. The rather common underlying legal assumption was that children lack the capacity to discern correctly between prescribed behavioral standards, a condition that made them legally comparable to property and therefore sellable. Academicians have debated on the boundaries of patria potestas (currently translatable into parental authority). As an example, the Roman 12 Tables assigned this power to the fathers. Strict interpreters sustained that this authority was extreme and a remnant of pre-existing “practices of barbarous origin and primitive character” (Table VI, Law I, II and III. S.P. Scott, The Civil Law, Vol. XII, 64-65 (The Central Trust Company 1932)). A more conciliatory approach interpreted the precepts as having gradually evolved to restrict irresponsible and abusive exercise of such authority.

It was not until the 20th Century that the legal status of children was subjected to serious reviews and corrections. The idea that children have rights finally emerged and were embodied in Family Codes and Code of Minors. They were enacted to recognize children as “developing beings whosemoral status gradually changes” thus demanding a realistic understanding of their interests within the families and the larger social context (Introduction to Philosophical Views of Children: A Brief History in the Moral and Political Status of Children (David Archard & Colin Macleod eds., 2005)).

Children hold our hopes for a better future. Their status has been a subject of concern for lawmakers, scholars, judges, lawyers, and common citizens. National laws and regulations as well as international treaties have been dedicated to children with increased interest during the last century.

Media urged to play role for promoting child rights awareness

This article appears in the Pakistan Associated Press web site:

http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36879&Itemid=2

ISLAMABAD,
Apr 30 (APP): Media must play an active role in promoting awareness among people regarding child rights protection and human rights.

This was observed by the participants in a media consultation on Consequences of Corporal Punishment arranged by Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) held here on Wednesday.

The consultation was arranged to discuss the hazards, and alternatives to corporal punishment. The event began with a Song on Juvenile Justice produced by SPARC.

National Manager Promotion, SPARC, Ms. Fazila Gulrez briefed the participants about reasons and consequences of Corporal punishment.

Elaborating the causes, she said that the basic reason of these punishments are lack of education and awareness about the impact such punishments create on the mental growth of child.

As a result of punishment and physical abuses, children lose their interest in study and some times they adopt rebellious attitude which is a serious threat to their future.

In public schools, it has been observed that teachers use to behave harshly to make child more disciplined ignoring the consequences of such attitude and there is need to train the teachers for treating children keeping in view the individual differences and psychological needs, she added.

Fazila Gulrez said that domestic violence can include physical, verbal, sexual or emotional abuse. Children who witness regular acts of violence have greater emotional and behavioral problems than other children. Even very young children can be profoundly frightened and affected.

A child growing up in an abusive household learns to solve their problems using violence, rather than through more peaceful means as some of the long-term effects may include copying their parental role models and behaving in similarly destructive ways in their adult relationships,
she said.

Children may learn that it is acceptable to behave in a degrading way to other people, as they have seen this occur in the violent episodes they witnessed. Appropriate support and counselling will help children grow up learning not to abuse others, she added.

(Please go to the Pakistan AP web site for the complete article)

Let´s get serious Pope Benedict

Excerpt from http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/matthew_harwood/2008/04/a_prayer_for_the_prey.html

Prior to being Christ's Vicar on Earth, Pope Benedict's previous incarnation was the Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which centuries before took the biblical command to "not suffer a witch to live" seriously and went by a different name: the Holy Office of the Inquisition.

As defender of the faith, Ratzinger could have amended the Vatican's Crimen Sollicitationis [Crime of Solicitation], which originally drew guidelines for how the
church dealt with priests that used the confessional booth to solicit sex from parishioners, even the young. In 2001, Ratzinger revisited the document in a confidential letter to bishops reminding them of the strict penalties whistle blowers faced if they took the matter outside the church.

As David France reported in his book Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal, any accusation against a priest for paedophilia, as long as the allegedcrime wasn't more than 10 years ago, would trigger a church trial. The rub, however, was that the lawyers and jurors would all be priests sworn to secrecy. "Appeals," France wrote, "would go directly to an ecclesiastical tribunal in Rome, under Ratzinger's authority." More damning, priests that took part in the proceedings could not talk about them, the Irish Examiner reports, until 10 years after the child abused reached adulthood.

Lawyer Thomas O'Shea, who represented three young men allegedly olested by a former Houston seminarian, noted in the article that the Vatican's secrecy oath ensures that the statute of limitations for such crimes will have already run out in the US if any priest decided to speak out after his secrecy oath expired. The church rejected O'Shea's accusations and said Crimen Sollicitationis merely clarifies internal procedures. Nowhere in the policy are the victims and their rights mentioned, says canon lawyer Father Thomas Doyle.

Ratzinger had the power to change these polices but did nothing. He still does, Doyle told the BBC nearly two years ago, and advised that the church's policy should be: "[F]ull disclosure to the civil authorities, absolute isolation and dismissal of any accused and proven and convicted clerics, complete openness and transparency, complete openness of all financial situations, stop all barriers to the legal process and completely co-operate with the civil authorities everywhere."

List of children's rights organizations

A
Abundant Life Foundation
Action on Rights for Children
B
Berkshire Industrial Farm
C
Canadian Children's Rights Council
ChilOut
Child Rights Information Network
Child Watch Phuket
Child Welfare League of Canada
Child Workers in Asia
Child advocacy 360
Childline India Foundation
Children First Now
Children's Aid Society (Canada)
Children's Defense Fund
Children's Rights Project, UWC
D
Defence for Children International
Development and Education Programme for Daughters and Communities
E
ECPAT
Ecumenical Coalition on Third World Tourism
F
Fight Against Child Exploitation
First Focus
Free The Children
I
International Children's Peace Prize
International Falcon Movement
K
KidsRights Foundation
N
National Safe Place
P
Pies Descalzos Foundation
R
Red Hand Day
S
Stand for Children
Stop Child Executions Campaign
T
Terre des hommes
The Global Fund for Children
W
Watchlist (NGO)

For hypertext links go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Children%27s_rights_organizations

Religious objectors violate the rights of children

From the Columbian, Clark County Washington:

"Who wins in a battle between parental rights and the criminal justice system? The child, at least in cases where solid science is used to prove that routine medical treatment was withheld from a child by the parents. Unfortunately for Ava Worthington, none of this matters. It’s too late. The 15-month-old Oregon City, Ore., girl died at home on March 2 of bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection. According to The Associated Press, doctors say the pneumonia and the infection could have been prevented or treated with antibiotics. Her parents, Carl and Raylene Worthington, are accused of using prayer instead of medical care to try to cure Ava. Both pleaded not guilty on Monday in Clackamas County to charges of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment."

The concept of children as separate persons has not taken hold here in the United States. The rights of children are spelled out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which has been signed off (but not fully implemented) by all but two countries in the world. Disgracefully, the United States is one of the two. Somalia is the other one. We are keeping company with violent backward thugs.

You can help. Take action now...

Individuals and organizations in the United States that support the treaty must make a considerable effort to educate their fellow citizens about the importance of U.S. ratification of the CRC. For example, individuals can organize informational meetings and distribute materials about the CRC; work with local churches, schools and community groups to create grassroots support; and contact local newspapers with letters to the editor and op-eds in support of U.S. ratification of the CRC. Organizations can help by educating their staff and members about the Convention; discussing the CRC in newsletters and membership magazines; sending informational mailings to members; including the CRC as an issue at annual meetings; getting field offices involved; and officially endorsing U.S. ratification of the Convention.

http://www.unicef.org
http://www.childrightscampaign.org

Early childhood religious indoctrination

The facts about early childhood development are fairly well established. Children's little minds are like sponges and they have no critical defenses. Indeed this is what makes the practice of religious indoctrination so morally objectionable. All religions officially sanction the practice, it is calculated, devious, and unfair. Leave aside parental motivations, which as I have stressed over and over I am convinced are noble and well intentioned. I am troubled by institutional motivations -- they have to maintain membership rolls so they have vested interests.

If parents consign their children to religious indoctrination out of love and it is harmful how are we to consider this? It matters not if a drunk driver loves you or hates you when he crashes into you. The result is the same, and the result of a drunk driver's actions are what society goes after them for.

Religions have been given carte blanc in our country to do as they please. Now it is time we take stock and examine where we are. And yes I know the Supreme Court has decided parents can instruct their minor children in whatever religion they chose. This practice is legal (Pierce vs Mass 1944). But, please recall the supreme court gave approval for segregated schools, so that's not an iron clad argument. The supreme court also decided against women's suffrage. In Myner v. Happerstett the US Supreme Court decided that being a citizen does not guarantee suffrage. It was not until the 1920s that women finally had suffrage granted to them.

Times change, Pierce was decided 64 years ago. We move on, our understanding improves, and we should continually strive to make better choices that do not disadvantage one group with respect to another. Particularly, in this case children's interests versus their parents free exercise of religion interests. Why should the free exercise clause be so broadly interpreted? Children have rights, or they sure ought to have them by now.