Milton Vieyra - India - Save the Children

Corporal punishment allowed

Save the Children has been working for many years to outlaw corporal punishment throughout the world. We were involved in the campaign in the 1970s that lead to Sweden being the first country in the world to completely outlaw corporal punishment in 1979. Several countries followed suit, but in as many as 170 countries, it is still legal to punish and rear children using physical and psychological violence.

In our work against corporal punishment, we often meet fierce resistance. The freedom of adults to discipline children is often given priority over the right of children to not be beat. In addition to common sense, there are mountains of studies that unanimously reveal the absurdity in the argument that violence does children any good. Quite to the contrary, children who are violated at home and in school lose their self-confidence and trust in others because they have been betrayed by the ones they should have been able to trust most of all.

Many children do not learn any other way to solve conflicts than by using violence. This means that children who grow up with corporal punishment run the risk of repeating the same pattern when they become parents.

What we do worldwide against corporal punishment:

• Change the attitudes toward children and discipline among parents, teachers, and all adults.

• Put demands on global authorities to act against violence toward children.

• Spread knowledge about positive reinforcement as an alternative to violence.

Illiteracy

Over 75 million children in the world are not able to attend school. More than half of them live in areas subjected to war and conflicts. From a larger perspective, it is difficult to identify the chicken and the egg. Education is about so much more than being able to read, write, and do arithmetic. It is the basis of democratic society and crucial to the stability and development of the country.

The fact is that no country has managed to build up lasting economic growth without a system in which basically all children can go to school. Without an education, many children end up in unemployment, poverty, and criminality, and they are recruited as soldiers. The risk is also considerably greater that their own children will suffer poverty. The vicious circle must be broken, and that is why Save the Children devotes most resources to education.

We strive to make education available to all children and to improve the quality of existing education in several ways. We restore schools and distribute educational materials. Many teachers believe education is best carried out with violence and punishment, making an important part of our efforts teaching the teachers about the rights of children and positive reinforcement in education. In the last three years, Save the Children has improved the education of more than 10 million children who live in countries in conflict and made sure a million children who had never before set foot in a school now get the opportunity to learn to read and write.

What we do worldwide for education:

• Train teachers in the rights of children and how not to use violence and abusive punishment in school.

• Influence attitudes so children who are discriminated against for reasons such as gender, disabilities, and ethnicity, are allowed to go to school.

• Make sure education can quickly recover from natural disasters, war, and conflict.

• Influence governments so they devote resources to quality basic education for all children.

• Build and restore schools where needed and distribute educational materials.

Child labor

Over 200 million children in the world work. It would be easy to say all child labor should be forbidden, but it is not that simple. The issue is closely tied to poverty. Without the income child labor produces, many families in poor countries would simply not be able to provide for themselves. The child labor we see today in many countries existed in basically all industrialized countries, such as Sweden, less than a century ago. The forces that led to change were not legislation, primarily, but rather that industrialization and machines took over the jobs of children. Another crucial factor was that we introduced public schools.

The issue is closely related to the overall development of the country, and Save the Children does not believe that making broad generalizations about child labor would be particularly fruitful. In most cases, we say no to boycotts of child labor. Experience shows that children who have to stop work because of economic sanctions often end up in more difficult situations and with more harmful jobs than before. Our long-term aim is without a doubt a society in which no child needs to work to help provide for the family. Until this is possible, we strive to improve the situation for children who work and make sure they can also go to school. And not least among these efforts is that we combat the exploitation of children as soldiers, indentured slaves, and prostitutes.

What we do worldwide:

• Work for all children to attend school.

• Make sure children who have to work because of their families’ financial or social situations may still go to school, after work, for example.

• Improve the situation of working children and make sure the laws preventing harmful child labor are enforced.

• Support children and young people who organize to make their rights heard at the workplace.

• Combat all forms of slavery, prostitution, and trafficking of children.

Child marriage

Child marriage is one of the most common but hidden forms of slavery in the world. Girls, often as young as 10–12 years old, are married to men they are forced to live with and have sex with, against their will. Child marriage occurs in many countries, and it is primarily the young girls who suffer most. Most of them are forced into these marriages by their family, relatives, tradition, and cultural values. Sometimes the bride is given in exchange for money or in the belief that the girl will be protected against sexual abuse or extramarital pregnancy. In fact, the marriage leads to sexual abuse. The girls that are married in this way become de facto slaves. They are not allowed to go to school or work outside the home and often live like prisoners in their own homes. Many are forced to give birth while they are still children. The girls are subjected to harassment and abuse, rape, and even murder.

What we do worldwide against child marriage:

• Fight for the introduction of legislation that forbids child marriage.

• Make it easier to declare marriages invalid, and provide the victims the right to sue their perpetrators.

• Get the girls educated to increase their independence and awareness of their rights.

Poverty

Poverty exists everywhere in the world. It takes a variety of forms but all are similar in that children are hit hardest. They often have to work to support the family and cannot go to school. Poverty also threatens their health because, if they are undernourished, the very young can suffer permanent physical and mental injury, along with learning difficulties for the rest of their lives. To be poor also invites a multitude of social problems and alienation. It is a trap, difficult to escape, that carries on through the generations.

Poverty is relative, but article 27 of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) nonetheless establishes that all children have the right to a reasonable standard of living based on the situation and conditions in the country. This means that no child should have to be segregated from society as a result of the family’s lack of means. Save the Children fights poverty in many ways, ranging from emergency response and microloans to lobbying politicians who have the power to make changes. And last but not least, we work so that all children may go to school, because it is crucial to breaking the vicious circle of poverty.