Childhoods- Towards education that is all inclusive

 

Childhoods-How do we achieve equality in Education?

Education is an important aspect of Childhood.  When Aires Phillipe wrote about the absence of childhood in the 17^th century, a lot of reforms were made to create a better environment for a child.  Before then, education was available to well-to-do children and they were educated at home.  The rest of the children from poor families were left in the streets to play as their parents went to work in very difficult environments in those days.  Eventually, children from poor families were taken to schools and due to the attention given to children in those institutions from all professions like social workers, and doctors,  among others, life kept becoming better and better for the children. The process of enacting laws to protect the child was begun and today this forms part of the agenda in every government.  A lot of milestones have been achieved in the care and protection of the child.  Today we have the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children adopted by nations all over the world.  The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) has been adopted by African countries and within every nation there are laws protecting the child. 

ACRWC article 11 section 3 in relation to our education system in Kenya:

            States Parties to the present Charter shall take all appropriate

measures with a view to achieving the full realization of this right

and shall in particular:

(a) provide free and compulsory basic education:

(b) encourage the development of secondary education in its

different forms and to progressively make it free and accessible

to all;

(c) make the higher education accessible to all on the basis of

capacity and ability by every appropriate means;

(d) take measures to encourage regular attendance at schools and

the reduction of drop-out rate;

(e) take special measures in respect of female, gifted and

disadvantaged children, to ensure equal access to education for

all sections of the community.

Though this applies to every child there are gaps when it comes to implementation.  I have worked with children from low-income households and the majority of them are not getting this benefit.  The education system treats all children equally while on the ground this is not the case.  Children come from different backgrounds and some are so disadvantaged that opportunities in education that would have helped them break the poverty circle are not within their reach. The education system is so competitive at the moment that performers get the best schools and often get all the help they want.  Only a few from low-income families get this opportunity.

Low-income parents and caregivers spend most of their time looking for work on a daily basis which is at times very demanding and low paying.  They often don’t have regular sources of income and their participation in school programs is also very irregular.  Though the term free education is used, it’s actually a partnership where the government plays a part and the parent has a part to play. 

Sometimes the school demands are too high for parents to afford at once.  Without extra support, the majority of children miss out on quality education.  They are forced to transit to the locally available school where their parents are comfortable paying piecemeal with a struggle.  These schools are often overpopulated with high levels of indiscipline cases which eventually affect a performing child who has to study there.  Where the parents struggle and take their child to a school that will ensure good performance, this child will often be sent home from time to time missing many lessons and eventually dropping out to join the local school or dropping out of school completely. Whether they come from low-come families, whether they attend a school that has all facilities, or one that is struggling to survive with minimal resources eventually all these children will sit for the same national examination.

The government has time to do an audit of the abilities of caregivers.  It has the mechanisms to know the parents who can support their children without external support, those who need partial support, and those whose children will miss out on education if no support.  If the government is proactive, the assessment should begin as soon as the children join a school and continue to the time of transition.  The government should be able to transit the children depending on the abilities of caregivers to support their children so that no child is left out because of the inability of their parents to afford whatever the school requires.  Part (b) of that article has not worked in some areas where we have a number of primary schools supported by one high school that is within the parents’ means and because the requirement is a hundred percent transition, the schools are overpopulated, a population that does not match the number of staff.

The needs of children are many and we cannot ignore the fact that some children are more vulnerable than others and the government needs to step in to protect them.  A lot needs to be done on preventive measures rather than reactions to what has already happened.  Universal education should be just that so that each child is given an equal opportunity to be competitive in the job market or create a career for themselves.  The conversations about the improvement and betterment of childhoods should continue and be a regular responsibility to all of us so that children from poor families can break the poverty circle.  The millennium goals will not be achieved if we are not looking at the needs of tomorrow’s leaders now.  The future should be looked at from the point of who and where they are now which will determine what they will be then.

Childhoods -The shadow of Safety

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 Child Molesters and Pedophiles

Did you know that there is a small difference between the two?

Young girls getting pregnant is a challenge in Kenya.  Statistics show that Kenya is ranked 3^rd worldwide in teenage pregnancy. Young girls from low-income families are becoming victims of molesters and pedophiles.  Our homes can appear safe yet they are too exposed from all sides.  Molesters and pedophiles

can see right through the shadow of what appears to be safety.

A child molester is any older person, male or female who engages in sexual activity with a child or children.  A pedophile however is someone who is sexually attracted to children especially those in pre-puberty using the definition used in the book  Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis, A molester takes advantage of the child when a situation presents itself and sexually abuses the child while, the pedophile may actually not have sex with the child per se.  They may fantasize or masturbate by watching children.   If a pedophile has sex with the child then they become a molester. The mind is the workshop for all our actions.  Pedophiles are molesters in my opinion whether they fantasize or not thoughts will eventually lead to actual action.  

Photo by Chiara F on Unsplash

As a manager in a child support program, cases of child molestation were the most hurting and disturbing of all abuses.  They are very difficult to handle and mostly the children never get justice. The offenses take place in low-economic households for various reasons or what is referred to as situational molestation. I found the description of offenders as discussed in the book Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis, to fit the kind of offenders I dealt with.  Briefly, they include:

       I.            Regress offender who has low self-esteem and poor coping skills and therefore start abusing children as a replacement for their preferred sexual partner because the children are available and unprotected.  The abuses in the cases I dealt with were men who were not a) biological fathers to the children they were living with, b) neighbors who were at home when the parents of the abused child went to work, c) older siblings or their friends who are left to care for the children and abuse children due to the influence of the media, d) mothers boyfriends who are well known to the child or relatives living with the family of the abused child.

    II.            Morally indiscriminate offender: this is an abuse of everyone not only children. He cheats, lies, and steals apart from being a sexual offender.  He abuses everyone including children, wife, siblings, relatives, and co-workers which means he could be anyone from a father to an older sibling in the family.

 III.            Inadequate offender: this is a person who lives in their own world, is withdrawn, is a social misfit, could be a shy teenager who does not associate a lot, or is a loner who lives with parents.

The kind of molesters I have dealt with could be anywhere in the three categories or they could have a mixture of two or all of the three.  The common things about them are that: (a) they are all male, (b) middle-aged, (c) staying alone but neighbor the family of the abused child or live with relatives, they were idle at the time of committing the crime, (d) men invited by mothers to live with the family as a husband and provider to children they never sired. 

The circumstances in which the offense occurs often make it hard to go through the process of prosecution from my experience for the following reasons: 

 Cooperation from both the parent and the community is minimal.  Society tends to sympathize with the offender more than the child.  The abuse is likely to be covered up and not reported and if it is reported, the parents fail to cooperate.  Mothers who invited men to live with them do not want to lose them because of economic gain and they would ask questions like, “If you incarcerate him, who will take care of the other children? If the offender was not caught in action, they might deny the allegations.

•   As a social worker, you get to know the abuse through observation or when the child reports to you.  There has to be proof for the offender to be prosecuted.  It becomes very hard to prove that the abuse did happen if there is no pregnancy or physical wounds that show abuse did occur. If the offender gets a good lawyer they are likely to get away with the abuse since there is no evidence placing them on a crime scene. The cases are very sensitive and a risk to the workers because of how society views the offense.  Unlike the law, society does not place value on a child’s story, we rarely believe in children.
•  Sometimes the offenders are either law enforcement officers, teachers, or people who are well-educated and the victim is from a low-income household.  The victim’s family will be threatened, and they will be isolated especially if the offender is a father, a relative, or someone within the family like a sibling.  The family would be adamant to report the case and deal with it within the family and the child will never get justice.
• The children are too young to differentiate anal and virginal sex. One such case almost slipped through our fingers because there was no virginal penetration but after sometimes the child could not control urine or gas.  The hymen was intact but after a thorough checkup, the doctors discovered there was a tear in the rectum which seal the evidence and provided conclusive evidence of abuse.  However, the case is yet to be finalized.

  

  photo by Godfrey Phiri on Unsplash

• Children do alert their parents that they were being harassed before the actual offense took place but mothers do not believe their own children.  There are always signs that the child is being abused parents are either too trusting or too busy to notice the problem. Parents do not believe in us the social workers and instead believe that their children are too young to understand anything to do with sex. They often feel we are falsely accusing the offenders or their children are lying which brings conflict between us. Reality hits them when the actual offense occurs.
• There are no protection units where children can be placed as investigations are going on and if they are the process is too low and the child is still within the same environment of abuse eventually, they are compromised and recant their testimony.

 It is my observation that children from low-income households are at risk the status of their family determines where they live which may not be safe but they have no choice because that is what the parents can afford. The governments need to uphold the laws enacted to protect children and ensure by all means every child is known and protected.  there should be care alternatives where parents have failed to protect their children or where they are struggling, the government should step in to offer relief as parents organize themselves.

The war against abuse is a tough one.  There is so much going on in families, especially in such difficult economic times that parents may not be there for their children all the time.  However, empowering them to engage their children in conversations concerning their safety is important so that they are able to detect risks before abuse occurs.   Children should also know where to report if the parents do not take action when they tell them. Social systems should be put in place so that all parties are protected against risks after cases are reported.  Children should be withdrawn from the abusive environment immediately even as investigations go on.