Mask slips on pious humbug of child rights

Klingon Hamlet

John Waters article in the Irish Times:

Amendment’s purpose is not to strengthen child rights but to extend government control over children, writes JOHN WATERS

ALTHOUGH THE deferral of the proposed “children’s rights” referendum will be welcomed by anyone who understands what such an amendment is likely to mean, the reasons being advanced are instructive as to the official mindset lurking behind the platitudes which have attended this discussion from the beginning.

According to reports this week, the delay is unavoidable because of difficulties with the wording pointed up by various Government departments.

This, remember, was a wording we were told was close to perfection, requiring merely minor “tweaking” to place it beyond any reasonable objection. Remember, too, that the point was to enable the Irish nation to cherish all its children equally by acknowledging in our Constitution “the natural and imprescriptible rights of all children”.

The State is now, it seems, waking up to the dangers of hiding its true intentions behind pieties and moral blackmail.

The first objection, presumably raised by the Department of Justice, is that the amendment, once passed, may extend such a bounty of additional rights to the children of illegal immigrants that it may be impossible to deport them. Speaking earlier in the week, the Minister for Children, Barry Andrews, said the emphasis of the proposed wording that the “best interests of children being of paramount consideration” may be problematic in this context.

No, you have not misunderstood: this Government, which persistently asserts its determination to ensure the equal citizenship and full participation of all children in Irish society, now belatedly realises that such an objective may interfere with its wholesale deportation of children who happen to be the wrong colour or pedigree. This, obviously, cannot be countenanced, thus necessitating a dilution of said Government’s commitment to what it seeks to characterise as the protection of children.

Several times, in debating this proposed amendment with politicians advocating the mooted changes, I have suggested that recognition of “the best interests of children” as the “paramount consideration” would seriously alter the ecology of family rights as currently guaranteed under the Constitution. My concern, I should say, was not that the Government would no longer be able to deport brown-skinned children, but that the term “best interests of children” is not objectively defined, and therefore could come to be defined in such a way as to dilute or vitiate the rights of parents to protect and care for their families as they see fit. I have pointed out that, in declaring something the “paramount consideration”, you may willy-nilly reduce the weight accorded to competing claims.

Each time I have raised these points, the politician I was debating with accused me of scaremongering. Now, it seems, somebody in the Department of Justice has decided that there is something in this argument.

A further objection has been raised by the Department of Education, which fears that the proposed amendment’s commitment to the “voice of the child” may mean that children threatened with expulsion from school may be entitled to legal representation. What a shocker! The very idea that, because you extend equal rights to “children as individuals”, you may end up with children having equal rights as individuals! Who could possibly have foreseen this?

The Department of Education clearly wishes to avoid a situation whereby, in undermining the position of parents, children might accidentally be enabled to take on the State. Whatever this may be called, it can no longer be deemed a commitment to the equal rights of children.

What is most remarkable, however, is that the State is now permitted to shelve or amend its own wording on the basis of arguments that amendment proponents have dismissed in the wider context of family rights. It is all right, it seems, for the State to insist on protecting its pool of powers and capacities, but if parents seek to do similarly they are “anti-children’s rights”.

There are, of course, many other situations in which a change in the current balance of rights will have implications also for the workings of the State. I anticipate, therefore, further waning in official enthusiasm for extending total equality to children. What, for example, about a child who wishes to sue a social worker for destroying his or her right to a family life?

Beneath the humbug, it has long been obvious that the purpose of this amendment is not to give rights to children, but to disable the constitutional protections currently available to families, and to enable the State to gain ultimate control over the lives of Irish children. This week, the mask has slipped a little.

Children seem to get short shrift in this country, don't they? Whether native or immigrant, kids are the last to be truly protected, cherished and consulted when it comes to their welfare. And as Mr Waters clearly points out, the gov is now panicking because the amendment appears to grant these most vulneralbe of our society the right to defend themselves against state-sanctioned exile/persecution/neglect.

When will the day come that the government stands up for what's right, and ends its diabolical attack on innocent children? A decade? A century? We're a young state, led blindly by the chuckling masses of Fianna Fail crooks into the darkness. When will we free ourselves from their tyrannical oppression? When will kids transform from Pawns into the Protected?

Probably never. The amendment will be amended to the fat cats' satisfaction. Children will continue to suffer, while pen-pushing liars claim the amendment was the best they could do to prevent disastrous deaths and abuses, shake their heads, shrug, and/or pass the buck. Sucks to be Irish.

astrofool

So they want to make sure that babies aren't born here just so the parents can claim to be Irish (we passed a referendum on this a couple of years ago, I voted against it), and to make sure that when a pupil gets expelled from school that they can't take the school to court (at the taxpayers expense).

Seems reasonable enough to me. Protect the referendum result, and make sure that little tw*ts don't cost the state millions when they get expelled.

Children need to be protected, but it also needs to be recognised that they are children, not adults, and get treated differently as a result of that, sometimes positively (tried as a minor), sometimes negatively.

Sand

The whole childrens rights thing is just a bandwagon that politicians, quangos and various activists have jumped on top of.

The whole thing should just be shelved and our legislators and various public services should work on actually implementing better services for children in reality, as opposed to simply thinking up aspirational targets that will not be met.

opo

astrofool wrote: »

So they want to make sure that babies aren't born here just so the parents can claim to be Irish .

Not my read on it.

I suspect that they recall the debacle of the Belfast agreement allowing a serious situation to develope that was not intended in relation to citizenship.

In this case, they are probably anticipating a legal block to deporting childern and by default their entire families. I suspect they are right - the lawyers will have a field day and will of course argue that the rights they enjoy in Sudan or Lagos for example are inferior.

Waters seems quite upset that another insane clause is not willy nilly put in our constitution that will render our immigration laws useless.

His language, demeanour and racist slurs in this infantile article are disgusting and offensive.

His mask slipped too.

Sand

I dislike Waters intensely but his angle is that he views the act as not strenthening the rights of children, but the rights of the state to overrule parents/family rights. He views the state as being highly destructive and arbitrary in its treatment of families and particularly fathers.

Hes just pointing out that as soon as it became apparent that the rights of children might conflict with the powers and rights of the state that the brakes were slammed on, confirming his own view that this is more about increasing the power of the state over children and families, not the rights of children.

The childrens rights bandwagon is dangerous, ill defined, feel good nonsense that wont do a single iota of good for any child in Ireland. Its a waste of time and effort and worse, a way for politicians to dodge out of taking meaningful action to improve services for children ("Shure, didnt I campaign for the childrens rights referendum....thats my bit done").

johnnyskeleton

opo wrote: »

In this case, they are probably anticipating a legal block to deporting childern and by default their entire families. I suspect they are right - the lawyers will have a field day and will of course argue that the rights they enjoy in Sudan or Lagos for example are inferior.

At present, the test is along the lines of whether it would cause serious harm to the child to be removed and that is balanced with the right of the state to deport people.

If the new amendment is passed the court will be required to consider the best interests of the child as a paramount consideration, overruling the right of the state to deport people unless it can be shown that they would have an equal or better life abroad.

The other big problem is that this amendment seeks to reverse the law about allegations of sex with an underage child. Under the referendum, the oireachtas can pass whatever laws they think fit in respect of offences involving (not against, but involving) children. In particular, they can remove the defence of reasonable mistake which IMO is very unfair. But aside from my views that it is very unfair, the only justification put forward for removing this is that it might mean less cross examination of children. But the only cross examination of children that could be done on this defence is to see if they represented themselves (by words, actions, false documents or arguably by dress and makeup) to be 17 or over. Hardly a justification for removing what could in many circumstances be a very important defence, especially where the two people are of similar age e.g. 17 and 16.

fontanalis

Waters muppetry aside, isn't this a very difficult issue? On one hand you have the states rotten history of child care when they turned a blind eye to institutional child abuse; but let's say a child was being constantly abused by parents or living in sh1t family (junkies etc) isn't one of the criticisms "where are the relevant state bodies"?

opo

fontanalis wrote: »

Waters muppetry aside, isn't this a very difficult issue? On one hand you have the states rotten history of child care when they turned a blind eye to institutional child abuse; but let's say a child was being constantly abused by parents or living in sh1t family (junkies etc) isn't one of the criticisms "where are the relevant state bodies"?

Absolutely.

But no-one has explained what a constitutional amendment will achieve that is unachievable otherwise.

Waters is speculating as he is entitled to do and wildly guessing what it will do because he, like everyone else, is in the dark as to what the amendment will do in the fullness of time.

If their is a clear intent then it should be possible to legislate accordingly.

Mario007

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

At present, the test is along the lines of whether it would cause serious harm to the child to be removed and that is balanced with the right of the state to deport people.

no right now the test is along the lines of whether there is a marital family that the child belongs to and if there is then the court thinks that the best interest of the child is with the marital family unless it can be proven that the parents neglect the child for a year and this neglect will continue until the child's 18 years of age.

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

The other big problem is that this amendment seeks to reverse the law about allegations of sex with an underage child. Under the referendum, the oireachtas can pass whatever laws they think fit in respect of offences involving (not against, but involving) children. In particular, they can remove the defence of reasonable mistake which IMO is very unfair.

wasn't this the problem with the 2007 wording? from my read of the new amendment and of the academic commentaries the provision for removing the defence of honest mistake is not included(a committee on the 2007 wording actually advised against such a provision)

johnnyskeleton

Mario007 wrote: »

no right now the test is along the lines of whether there is a marital family that the child belongs to and if there is then the court thinks that the best interest of the child is with the marital family unless it can be proven that the parents neglect the child for a year and this neglect will continue until the child's 18 years of age.

The test for whether to remove the non national parents of an irish citizen child from the state, not the test to take an irish citizen child into the custody of the state.

Mario007 wrote: »

wasn't this the problem with the 2007 wording? from my read of the new amendment and of the academic commentaries the provision for removing the defence of honest mistake is not included(a committee on the 2007 wording actually advised against such a provision)

I dunno. Have they actually published the bill yet, as opposed to all the talk about it?