Rights, Power and Justice (RPJ) Are Inalienable and Unavoidable Building Blocks for Positive Child Development

Author: Temesgen Afeta, October 31 2023 - At all stage of children's development, rights, power and justice (RPJ) are the building blocks that have to consistently complement one other to ensure children fully enjoy education, health, and protection services for their well-rounded and sustained wellbeing. I have been working on programs, projects, research, disease prevention, social and community mobilization, and social accountability incorporating child rights (non-discrimination; the rights to life, survival, and development; the best interest of the child; and the need to engage and respect children's views). When I was a child and now as a parent and a worker to ensure child rights, I have been facing and observing the fact that children are unable to enjoy their full development due to mismatching of parents, children and community powers, which results in the failure to empower the vulnerable or control power imbalances affecting children, parents and communities. Children, parents, teachers and health workers need to be told that children have inalienable and unavoidable rights due to being human. This fact is widely accepted, practiced and valued, as it protects the social and cultural assets of the younger generation, as proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I have reviewed all 42 child rights articles and have analysed them for implementation in the context of power related to gender, age, ethnicity, religion, education, community, and decision-making control over resources and institutions.

However, enjoying their rights primarily depends upon the power children or their caregivers and their communities possesses. The power of children to enjoy their rights like going to school, playing with their peers, participating and speaking openly with fellow students, responding to what teachers teach, and staying in classrooms thanks to fuel from the food they eat and the psychosocial care and the power of parents, teachers and health workers.  From my own experience growing up and then raising my own children and working in institutions, I have observed that children's ability to enjoy their rights diminishes due to power imbalances emanating from ethnicity, age, migration, displacement, involvement (or lack thereof) in decisions of agencies, and various economic and social realities. Justice as a social instrument must come in between and regulate children so they do not lose their rights due to having less power of self, parents and their communities. Justice increases the power of children, parents, teachers, and other caregivers and/or safeguards children from those holding more power harming powerless parents, children and communities. The importance of power and justice to ensure children's rights is mainly overlooked when promoting children's rights, including awareness, program development, policy formulation, budget allocation, advocacy, children's participation, and child protection. Though rights are enjoyed as individual and group, they are inalienable and unavoidable; power is inherent within children and society. Justice is harmonizing the rights of individuals and the power of society and groups mainly outside of the individual child and affecting their power to enjoy their rights.

 

Due to my working with children, parents, teachers, health workers, child right policies and agencies working on child rights, I have created a practical framework and theoretical explanation of RPJ as a building block whose components have to consistently complement one another in all aspects of life to ensure child rights, wellbeing, healthy development and a harmonious human society. Rights and power are at two extremes, while justice is in between them to keep the balance between power increasing for those with less power and preventing those with more power and capacity to cause harm. Justice ensures that rights are enjoyed. Having observed, lived, and worked on these issues, I believe that the importance of power in ensuring children's rights is often ignored in planning and implementing child services. Power is the ability to act and enjoy one's own inalienable or unavoidable rights, and justice is a tool to ensure that those with less power shouldn’t miss out on enjoyment of their rights due to holding less power and being more vulnerable.

Power: The Foundation for Children to Enjoy Their Right to Play

Power encourages and facilitates children play. Power provides resources and supports for teachers and parents to facilitate children's play. On the other hand, power overlooks, neglects, discriminates, and discourage children's play. Power also prohibits resources and facilities for teachers and parents and averts children's play. Power deteriorates the situation, discriminates and abuses children, parents, communities and teachers who directly make it possible for children to play. Power ruins the capacity of parents and teachers who provide resources and skills for children's micro environment. Yet power provides resources, skills and opportunities for parents and teachers who enjoy and have time and motivation to make it possible for children to play. Parents' power position affects their control over resources and decision-making prospects that prevent them from enforcing their children's right to play.

I have grown, lived, learned, worked and observed power inequality in gender, age, poverty, ethnicity, religion, vulnerability and decision making hampering children's right to play. I also observed how mothers' gender position is affecting children. The power of mothers and fathers and their children themselves in the society and culture are affecting children’s opportunities and resources to enjoy their right to play.

Child programs and projects need to be clear, allocate resources, take action and monitor and appraise which child rights to ensure and how to increase the power of children, parents, teachers and communities so that children enjoy their rights. Child wellbeing and their harmonious societies are ensured within the framework of the power that enables, justice that regulates, and rights that protect children's wellbeing.

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