Triangle:
In regards to information there were 3 points that I was completely shocked by; but at the same time I was happy to see that had at least been identified and had progress made on were statistics in regards to children’s health, safety, and freedom.
Disturbing to me was the statistics revolving around how many children were not receiving vaccinations and that something that surprised me was the number of children fighting HIV. Just as so many blue collar workers complain it seems the same is for children, they do not receive a health benefit, nor are they generally thought of needing medical treatment. “22 million infants are not protected from diseases by routine immunization and 4 million under – fives die each year from just three causes: diarrhea, malaria or pneumonia (Executive Summary, 2009).” This to me also pushes into the corner of safety; I look at children from the prospective that we are to teach, protect and love our children in order for them to grow and flourish in the world; what can be said if you cannot even provide something as important as vaccinations, is that looking out for the safety and well being of the child. I think that one has to take into consideration that a child does not really understand exterior circumstances of their lives until later in life, but something as simple as health and safety are the basic needs one has to have in order to survive.
Which leads one to see that while the rate that children have received vaccinations as a requirement of law and of education we have also seen the death rate in children decrease by millions over the last several years. “The annual number of global under-five deaths has dropped from 12.5 million in 1990 to less than 9 million in 2008 (Executive Summary, 2009)”. This is something that we have to feel progressively better on a global perspective, but is so difficult to think of how many children are unnecessarily suffering from something that could have been avoided by something as small as a vaccination.
With this also comes the value of a Childs freedom; yes not having medical benefit by home or work is difficult, what is to come of a child who is worked to the bone and sickly? Are they still a child? Do they know what play is? The sad truth is no. It was not until 1836 that there was anything written that gave a child the right to an education, that meaning 3 months of practice on the basics of reading and writing. And it was not until 1903 with the Children’s Crusade that children’s rights in regards to just being a child were not truly thought of. People forget that under these youthful bodies that do not understand what pain, and in many ways right and wrong are still young minds that need to imagine and play, need to look at the world through their own lenses and figure it out instead of having it handed to them by the most commonly povertous hands that lived before them.
Square:
Something that squared with me looking over the timeline of events given on Wikipedia was that while we have continuously made changes and ratifications to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (and even before then with child labor laws) nothing has really changed about exploiting children except for how it is done. In the 1800’s labor laws were created to protect children from being worked to death, in the 1900’s the change to exploitation began and by the time we came to 2000 it has become sad, sadistic and unspeakable what people will do to exploit a child. The laws and ratifications made to laws change with the times and how children need to be protected. This squares with me in a very sad and disturbing way because it shows that the world does not get it; we make laws for people to get the point and let children be children, not for people to think of new ways to exploit and use them. It must be said that just as there are many people that look at youthful people as tools or worse there are several people that work just as hard to protect the rights of children. It is just difficult to think that these people can never rest because there are people out looking for the next way to abuse and exploit kids who deserve the right to grow properly.
Circle:
A circling notion that you could warn others about is how much the way that we have exploited and over worked children has changed over time; this does not bode well for the means that people will go to continue to use children for labor and money. While we feel we are doing so much with labor laws, and departments dedicated to the many different forms of freedom that children fight for it must be understood that it begins with parental control. A firm and loving hand that provides for the child, looking back at how many children were dealt with in the early 1800’s, the exchange for a roof and food for labor until the age of 21 almost does not seem to bad off in comparison to what many children deal with today.
Timeline of young people's rights in the United States. (2009, May 17). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:57, May 19, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Timeline_of_young_people%27s_rights_in_the_United_States&oldid=290549375
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