Dr Patricio Cuevas-Parra is the Senior Global Policy Adviser for Child Participation and Rights with World Vision International where he leads strategies and programmes to ensure that children and young people's participation are at the centre of the advocacy and policy debate.
Whilst attending the UN Day of General Discussion[1] in Geneva, I was part of a panel discussion of adults and young people sharing the platform equally, which in itself signified much more than dialogue at the UN level; it was a milestone reflecting a substantial change on the way that children and young people can be positioned in public decision-making.
Whilst attending the UN Day of General Discussion[1] in Geneva, I was part of a panel discussion of adults and young people sharing the platform equally, which in itself signified much more than dialogue at the UN level; it was a milestone reflecting a substantial change on the way that children and young people can be positioned in public decision-making.
Along with three other young
people on the panel was 15 year old Haneen, an outstanding young advocate
who is defending and promoting children's rights in her hometown of Palestine.
I was thrilled and honoured to
meet and share a panel discussion with her.
To me, the conversation with
this child advocate was an enlightening experience that reaffirmed my view and professional
work, which falls within the debate on childhood as a social construction and
children as competent social actors and active participants in the construction
of their lives. This position explores the way we understand children, but also
how gender, ethnicity, race, class and other categories are intertwined
inseparably, defining how children construct and deconstruct their
individualities. Haneen is not just a child; she is a girl, a Muslim, and a
Palestinian across many other identities.
Despite the Convention on the
Rights of the Child’s Article 2, the principle of non-discrimination, whereby
all rights must be respected without discrimination of any kind, girls continue
to be treated differently based on social, cultural and legal norms that define
their roles and responsibilities in society.
Making assumptions that all
children can enjoy their rights and opportunities to participate equally
regardless of their gender or other categories fails to recognise that girls can
be disadvantaged due the social and cultural contexts in which gender identities
are constructed. The denial of gender as a category that determines the chances
of girls to engage in social life reinforces and endures legacies of inequality,
which continue to be present in most of the countries of the world.
As I was conducting interviews
with girls from Uganda, they told me that many girls are marginalised by gender
and denied of rights from birth and this continues through their whole lives as
daughters, sisters, students, workers, wives and mothers. They also pointed out
that gender exclusion is exacerbated by other categories such as race,
ethnicity and social status, which shape and restrict their lives and
opportunities. This is often attributed to the power dynamics in patriarchal
societies, where males are dominant in structures of subordination reinforces
gender stigma and stereotyping that confine girls to their homes and degrade
their roles in society resulting in an unequal realisation of their rights. By
assuming that all children construct their identities and rights equally and
their gender does not play a role with the equal opportunity to thrive,
increases unbalanced power relations and has a considerable impact on
discrimination and disadvantage concerning the deprivation of their rights.
While conducting research in
Bangladesh, girls told me that they are often expected to behave according to
their gender, that they are socially penalised if they do not follow those traditional
or expected patterns and they feel they are less favoured than the boys. In
Brazil, girls told me that they are conditioned from birth to be pretty and
sweet, but other characteristics like being smart and strong are discouraged.
In conversations with girls in Uganda, they told me that the value of a girl is
the equivalent of a cow if they are lucky; many others are exchanged or traded
for marriage for less than that. In America, I interviewed a group of girls
that told me they feel undermined and patronised by their male peers and
teachers at school and they are expecting to be sexually harassed if wearing
tight clothes or makeup.
I personally have a strong
commitment to looking at the identities and lived experiences of girls and boys
and how I can contribute to closing the gender gap in realising children's
rights. This is probably influenced by my own personal experience and
standpoints as I am continually constructing and reconstructing how our
identities define our lives as children and adults. When I am in the field, I am
captivated by the way the relationships between the boys and girls are framed
by their particular gender roles and I often relate sympathetically to the
girls’ struggle to be recognised as equals in their communities. Once I asked a
group of girls in Jordan about their feelings of vulnerability or exclusion in
relation to the difference between boys and girls. They said that they do not
feel vulnerable at all and do not want to be labelled as such, but agreed that
there was an ongoing fight for recognition of their abilities to participate,
but this does not undermine their abilities and sense of confidence. They said
they found their way to navigate this and to achieve everything they want.
This dialogue was crucial to
me in building new understandings by confronting my beliefs and co-constructing
shared meaning of what means to be a girl in any given society. Whilst
participating in the panel discussion in Geneva, I asked Haneen the same
question, and she responded that she feels empowered, confident and valued and,
moreover, she does not see differences between boys and girls. One can disagree
with her account, but her stand should help us to balance our perspectives to
look at different angles and not just focus on the deprived position of the
girls as a vulnerable group. Girls are not just defenceless individuals in need
of adult protection; while protection is one of their fundamental rights, they
also need to be seen as competent social actors who are able to negotiate power
relationships, to interact with others and to define and redefine their own
lives.
My call today
is to refocus our perspectives beyond a vulnerability lens and to embrace
girls’ strengths and empowerment in constructing their lives. This lens can
help to promote and improve the opportunities of girls to participate equally
in society and contribute to removing the traditional social norms that define
their position in society in relation to imposed social identities. It is
important to note that, although girls experience different challenges across
diverse social contexts, the full realisation of their rights, the desire for
inclusion and standing up for equality are almost identical demands from girls
regardless of their age, heritage, nationality or origin. Our collective
commitment should be to make those demands heard and their hopes a reality.
About the author
Dr Patricio
Cuevas-Parra is the Senior Global Policy Adviser for Child Participation and
Rights with World Vision International where he leads strategies and programmes
to ensure that children and young people's participation are at the centre of
the advocacy and policy debate. He has a keen interest in looking at
cutting-edge child rights advocacy tools and models to enhance children and
young people engagement in public decision-making. Patricio has been based in
Social Policy at the School of Social and Political Science at the University
of Edinburgh, supported by the Centre for
Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR).
References
De Graeve,
K. (2015) Children’s rights from a gender studies perspective: gender,
intersectionality and ethic of care, The Routledge international handbook of children's rights studies, pp147-163.
James, A.
and Prout, A. (1997) A New Paradigm for the Sociology of Childhood? Provenance,
Promise and Problems. In: James, A. and Prout A. (Eds.) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary
Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood, London: Falmer Press,
pp7–34.
Konstantoni,
K. and Emejulu, A. (2017) When intersectionality met childhood studies: the
dilemmas of a travelling concept, Children's
Geographies, 15(1), pp6-22.
O'Neill, C.
and Hopkins, P. (2015) Hopkins (2015) Introduction: young people, gender and
intersectionality, Gender, Place &
Culture, 22(3), pp383-389.
Tisdall,
E.K.M. (2017) Conceptualising children and young people’s participation:
Examining vulnerability, social accountability and co-production, The International Journal of Human Rights,
21(1), pp59-75.
[1] UN Committee on the Rights of the Child held a Day of
General Discussion (DGD) in September 2018 at the UN Palais des Nations in
Geneva on the theme of “Protecting and Empowering Children as Human Rights
Defenders”. The DGDs are conducted
biannually to develop a deeper understanding of the content and implications of
the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
No comments:
Post a Comment