Scotland Children’s Parliament 5th National Sitting, Edinburg, Scotland - November 6, 2019

Honorable members of the Children’s Parliament
Her Excellency, Minister Todd
Children’s Commissioner Adamson
Friends
Ladies and gentlemen,

It is an honor to be join you today – to be with children leaders such as you. Brave defenders of human rights.  Thank you for allowing me to join you at the 5th sitting of Scotland’s Children’s Parliament and in celebration of the 30th anniversary of UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Thank you for understanding that children too are rights holders.  Thank you for recognizing that their rights – your rights – like all human rights are not about our “likes and dislikes” but are important matters of law.  They are legal obligations that mean governments the world over should work to respect, protect and fulfill those rights.

Thank you for showing us how human rights are “doing” words – they are verbs! Thank you for using your rights to claim rights for you and to defend rights for others too. Thank you for standing up for children’s rights.

Thank you for knowing that rights explain to more powerful people how they should treat those of us with less power.   Thank you for knowing that the people who have the greatest power have the greatest responsibilities to make children’s rights a reality.

Maybe you don’t know it, but the impact of the work you do together here has been felt by other children in places thousands of miles away ... You have helped inspire establishment of the Pakistan Children Advocacy Network; motivate the Inter - American Institute of Children and Adolescents – the south and north Americas - to adopt a declaration recognizing children and youth as human rights defenders and you encouraged the country of Moldova to establish a Child Rights Information Centre.  You and the wonderful adults who are your partners in the work of the Children’s Parliament, are making a tangible difference - both far from where you are and near to where you live.

You are helping put Scotland at the forefront of child rights: Physical punishment of children - such as spanking – is being banned.  The voting age has been lowered.  The age of criminal responsibility is being raised.  Because of how  you have worked to show that children have wise opinions and advice when asked about schooling, about food and nutrition, about mental health and well-being – you are influencing the Government of Scotland and you are helping make a reality of the Human Rights of Children in Scotland Action Plan 2018-2021.  For as you have said so clearly, promises must be kept.  Words must become actions; leaders must deliver, and children must be included.

When the other Scottish Parliament holds their Human Rights debate later this year, highlighting the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, I hope they acknowledge loudly and clearly what they owe you! They owe you respect, protection and fulfillment of your rights, and they owe you thanks because you are helping them to obey the law, not the least because you know what your rights are and you are demanding that they do!

But it’s not as if everything is perfect.  The work to respect children’s rights in Scotland is not finished of course, and we need urgently far more effort for children’s rights, globally.  To make sure that children’s voices are heard on the issues that affect you today and on issues that will affect you tomorrow, we need all hands-on-deck.  All hands? 

Well, each of us has two of those to offer but even more fingers.  Perhaps we can imagine one of our hands reaching out to the children of Scotland, then could we imagine using our other hand to reach out for the rights of children everywhere?  If we can do that then I just wanted to suggest five things we should remember - one for each finger!

With this first finger, let’s note that there are more children and young people alive today than ever before in human history.  51% of the world’s population today is under 30. That’s makes you part a majority!  It’s a fantastic achievement and it’s because we have worked to stop women dying when giving birth; we’ve worked to help more babies survive their first one thousand days, we’ve worked so that younger children better thrive into their adolescence and around the world we have also worked to help girls specifically to stay in school. 

But for many children across the world, life is just too tough.  A majority of this new majority live today in the toughest of circumstances, in the poorest of places with the fewest opportunities – it’s children who are among those most exposed to conflict, to crisis and climate change impacts.  In the world today, poverty and absence of opportunity is young, young, young.  The poorest countries are home to the youngest populations.  The median age of Scotland is 42 but did you know, the median age of Uganda is 15.  And while a majority of the world population is under 30, but only 2% of members of parliaments are. The average age of members of parliament across the world is 53. 

It is our wrong that around the world, statistically children are asked to wait until they are in their fifties before you can be a member of adult parliaments. Children don’t have to wait.  They have the right to influence decision makers now – to have their voices hear – it is your right to contribute progressively, as your capacity to do so evolves. 

With a second finger – the “ring finger” – I want to emphasize that children’s worries and concerns matter, and yet your priorities are often made invisible.  Imagine what we would write if we filled out a global report card on governments’ support for the priorities of children, I don’t think anyone would be that proud to take such a report card home:  

We have to wake up to what it means to fail children.  It means that we are at high risk of wasting our most precious resource - the most interconnected, most educated, healthiest generation ever.  Wasting the talent and capacity of countless children, even though the evidence is so clear that investing in children and young people is to the benefit of everyone.

When older people speak about children, we too often speak about what children can’t do, what they don’t know, what they need to learn and maybe also about how vulnerable children are.  In reality though, children’s “vulnerabilities” are most often created by the bad decisions and bad behavior of unyoung – behavior that abuses, neglects, excludes, discriminates.  And children are not singularly vulnerable – all of us have vulnerabilities, depending on our contexts.   

Furthermore, children have competencies too.  Did you know that:

In fact, for centuries, armies were made up of the young, because being young was seen to be a competency – a state of strength and possibility; of the capacity to absorb new knowledge, to adapt, to be selfless.  So, why is that we have not valued in peace times that which we so quickly – wrongly – exploit in times of war?  It makes no sense.  Afterall, you can be small but still mighty - just ask Scotland. 

Furthermore, children and young people are ambitious to do more, to contribute more, because they have ambitions for a far, far better world.  But, it means you might get fed up though with just how slow the unyoung - older people - are to change.  Even His Royal Highness, Prince Harry noted recently when speaking with young people: “You may find yourself frustrated with the older generation …”.

Now, I better be careful here.  As you know, the middle finger is a powerful instrument.  In my experience, it is best we use our middle finger wisely. It can cause significant damage – or at least serious offense – so, we need to save our middle fingers for the truly serious problems we meet. 

For me, the middle finger is a reminder that the more we speak about empowering children and young people, the more we also need to speak too of the problem of the non-young.   Let me just read you a quote:

“We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns (I think that means bars/pubs) and have no self control."

That statement was found written on the wall of an Egyptian tomb – from more than 6000 years ago!   It is such a strange thing that throughout time, the non-young have looked down on the young.  And, yet, one thing I know for sure, is that at some point every single person in this room was a child and at some point, every single one of us is, will be or was an adolescent.

It’s as if when we enter adulthood, we just forget what it was like to be a child.   We forget that that the journey we all took from childhood to adulthood through adolescence – was the journey on which we all became ourselves – talented, personalised, gendered, intimate, desirous, hopeful … Is our adult amnesia so deep that we don’t recall at all what it was like to feel so lonely, uncertain, embarrassed as our bodies changed?  That we don’t remember how our shame mixed with fear mixed with risk taking? 

Across the world, the amnesia of adults is driving double standards that impede the dignity of children and young people: you might be old enough to be pregnant but considered too young to be entrusted with comprehensive sexuality education or with access to information on contraception?  You might be old enough to catch a sexually transmitted infection but too young to talk to a doctor about them?  You might be thought of as not old enough to vote but old enough to be married?

Friends, a child’s safe passage from birth to adulthood – is not the child’s responsibility – it is ours, us older people’s.   Truly, many of the challenges that children and adolescents face have far less to do with their behaviour and much more to do with adults’ – the behaviour of parents, families, schools, communities, governments and international actors.    

My personal advice?  Watch out for the non-young.  Don’t let them meet on their own. J

Whatever you are campaigning for, be sure always to have a standard that you are following – a rule of thumb.  Actually, that’s all that human rights laws are – standards – rules of thumb - that all we should follow.  The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child offer us all a rule of thumb on which we can rely, as we figure out whether our decisions, policies, laws, practices are respectful of children’s rights.

The thumb is also different of course – it an “opposable” finger – meaning it reminds us to be very clear about the things we must oppose: those abuses of children’s rights - bullying, humiliation, cruelty, discrimination because of who and how we look, love or worship.  But the thumb is multi-talented.  It gives us a way to show our approval – a thumbs-up – an endorsement of the rights we can enjoy – education, health, shelter, vacations – love. 

Our hands take strength from that thumb!  The thumb allows us to oppose clearly, to celebrate well, to grasp strongly and then when we reach out to the others, it allows us to hold their hands too, in solidarity.

A hand may make a fist.  But we must lower our fists, extend our hands, reach out to each other.  For that’s what human rights are all about – your rights upheld so that my rights too are respected, my rights exercised but not at cost to your rights. 

Don’t rights come in handy? 

Come on then – let’s give the Children’s Parliament of Scotland a big hand!

1. You are part of an historic majority.
2. Your experiences and concerns must matter more. 
   • Because education systems are failing children, at the end of their first decade in the world’s poorest countries – those with the youngest populations - only one child in every 10 can read;
   • Across the world, children and young people are disproportionately the victims of violence, including of sexual violence – as children emerge into young adulthood, they are more likely to be victims of crime than adults.
   • One in 200 children is a refugee while 27 million young people are migrants.  Millions of children are on the road, travelling sometimes on their own, making dangerous journeys in search of a safer life, less violence, more education and employment, less discrimination and abuse – searching, in other words, for where they can exercise their human rights.
3. Which brings me to the little finger - You have unique capacities that we cannot afford to waste
   • An 11-year-old invented the popsicle – the ice lolly?
   • A 12-year-old invented wind surfing?
   • A 14-year-old discovered the basic workings of the modern television?
   • Braille – the system used by visually impaired people to read and write was invented by a 15- year-old?
   • A 16-year-old invented the trampoline
   • A 17-year-old designed the (50 star) US flag?
   • An 18-year-old invented what would become the telephone?
4. That brings me to the middle finger
5. And that brings me, finally, to the thumb.