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8. Assessing Harm against Benefits
- Rutgers University Press
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All of these points are aptly illustrated in organizations of working children discussed above. When children successfully address issues that affect themselves and their communities, it improves their standing in their own eyes and in the eyes of others . Studies have indicated how such action improves children’s sense of responsibility , and consequently their relations with their families and communities (Lansdown, 2001, 4–8). Involving children in collecting information about their lives and their social and physical environment can help them to understand their problems and seek appropriate help. This can be an important intervention for marginalized children who have lost confidence in social relations with adults (Clacherty and Kistner, 2001). Child participation can therefore help to bring about better cohesion between adults and children in society. In practice, children, and especially adolescents , create their own worlds of meaning and relations, just as they come together in groups. If adults exclude them from decisions, they may decide that the only way to get noticed is through destructive action (perceived by adults as vandalism—e.g., Morrow, 2005, 65). When adults adopt a policy of child participation , they gain an opportunity to work with children and a chance to influence the way young people develop (Percy-Smith and Malone, 2001). Many initiatives have seriously involved children in defining their problems and seeking solutions to them, enabling them to take responsibility for the development of their communities to the benefit of all.21 Such consultations can also serve to raise awareness among the children and their communities of children’s rights, and to determine where these rights are being seriously infringed.22 Far from supporting individualism, participation encourages young people to see themselves as fully part of a larger community to which they are responsible and from which they can expect respectful support. What then are the problems? Difficulties in Applying Participation Consulting children is not straightforward. When an issue affects large numbers of children, a representative sample may be needed. Consultation requires that children be provided with appropriate information in a manner that is intelligible to them; they must have the opportunity to reflect on relevant information in an appropriate environment; they must be free to express their views; and they must have guidance and practice in forming responsible views based on information. Discussion and expression of views may require creative facilitation, especially for younger children, using games, drama, drawing, and other forms of expression. This takes time and resources (illustrated in the Egyptian case in chapter 9). The larger question is how to treat children’s opinions once they are obtained. TENSION BETWEEN EMPOWERMENT AND PROTECTION. In the next chapter, we shall introduce cases in which children wish to undertake work that adults CHILDREN ACTING FOR THEMSELVES 151 deem to be seriously harmful or hazardous to them. Some decisions can result in irreversible harm to a child’s physical or social development and adults have a responsibility to protect children from such harmful decisions. It has been argued that children’s right to be protected from exploitation overrides their right to have their views on work taken seriously. On the other hand, in chapter 5, we pointed to the danger of stifling children’s development by protecting them from all risk. Children sometimes perceive “protection” negatively, as excessive restriction by adults (Sinclair, et al., 2002, 8). There are numerous situations in which reasonable adults are divided on whether children should be prevented from incurring risks of which they are well aware, when there are clear benefits that the children wish to pursue. For example, tree-climbing teaches children physical dexterity and strategic thinking , besides being fun, but many parents will not allow their young children to climb to the top of a tall tree, and the height at which they will say “stop!” will vary substantially. To what degree should children be allowed to risk hazards in the workplace when they perceive the work as providing opportunity for longterm benefits (such as training)? There is no simple answer to this kind of problem , and it remains a constant matter of negotiation with children. It partly depends on how one judges “age and maturity of the child” (UNCRC, article 12, 1). COMPETENCE OF CHILDREN. Gerison Lansdown (2005) considers the evolving capacities of children in different situations and in different cultural settings, and points to large variations and the difficulty in finding reliable and universal criteria. Age is a simple and frequent criterion for legal assessment of competence, to vote, for example...