Social justice and human rights
Human rights have an impact upon child and adolescent bereavement, and have a direct impact on trauma, loss and grief. For example, poverty, alienation, isolation and prejudice all have many subtle, and powerful, impacts on child development.
Nowhere is this more relevant than with Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. High levels of morbidity and mortality are well documented in this group, and this correlates directly with human rights and social justice issues. These issues are historic and, unfortunately, ongoing.
Another vital reason to include a human rights and social justice section on this website is to explicitly acknowledge that improvements in child and adolescent health and wellbeing cannot happen in isolation. Professional involvement in child health (eg doctors, nurses, psychologists, and Aboriginal health workers), programs and various worthwhile initiatives (like this website) can address the problems that stem from trauma and loss.
However, we need to also acknowledge that wider, systemic change needs to happen. Implicit in this need is a commitment to not be seen to be ‘blaming the victim’.
If we provide a website resource that only addresses the effects (the loss, the outcomes of trauma) without balancing this with a recognition of the role of broader historic and socioeconomic causes, we open ourselves to a critique that we over-emphasise the agency of ‘the client’. This, therefore, leaves an assumption, to some, that the responsibility for the problem also lies with ‘the client’.
Children's rights
Human rights are children's rights too. International human rights instruments recognise that children as well as adults have basic human rights. Children also have the right to special protection because of their vulnerability to exploitation and abuse.
In November 1989 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (the CRC). This came into force on 2 September 1990. The CRC is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world. There are only 2 countries which have not signed the CRC, the United States of America and Somalia.
The CRC incorporates the whole spectrum of human rights - civil, political, economic, social and cultural - and sets out the specific ways these rights should be ensured for children and young people. The CRC recognises that the degree to which children can exercise these rights independently is influenced by their evolving maturity. It also emphasises the rights and responsibilities of parents where applicable.
Some of the core principles in the CRC are:
- the right to survival and development
- respect for the best interests of the child as a primary consideration
- the right of all children to express their views freely on all matters affecting them
- the right of all children to enjoy all the rights of the CRC without discrimination of any kind.
Australia ratified the CRC in December 1990, but it has not yet been incorporated into Australian law. Nevertheless, the Commission has the role of monitoring Australia’s compliance with the CRC.
Indigenous people's culture and heritage
"The National Mental Health Policy 2008 acknowledges our Indigenous heritage and the unique contribution of Indigenous people's culture and heritage to our society. Furthermore, it recognises Indigenous people's distinctive rights to status and culture, self-determination and the land. It acknowledges that this recognition and identity is fundamental to the well-being of Indigenous Australians It recognises that mutual resolve, respect and responsibility are required to close the gap on indigenous disadvantage and to improve mental health and well-being."
From National Mental Health Policy 2008, Commonwealth of Australia (2009, p. 8)
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Quotes
“We need the injustices addressed so that we can grieve our losses.” “We need stories told and acknowledged. Working on our grief in these ways is working towards justice.”
“…we will need to find ways of addressing issues of homelessness that do justice to the complexities of our history and that also honour Indigenous ways of relating to land, to housing and to home.”
From Wingard, B. and Lester, J. (2001). “Telling our Stories in Ways That Make Us Stronger”. pp. 55, 70-72.
Human rights refer to the "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." Examples of rights and freedoms which have come to be commonly thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression and equality before the law; and social, cultural and economic rights, including the right to participate in culture, the right to eat, the right to work and the right to education.
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”
From Article 1 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) adopted in 1948. |
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