Northeastern
Regional Seminar
on
‘Child
Rights and the Media’
(31
October – 01 November, 2013)
at
EFL
University, Shillong Campus
organized by
Department
of Journalism and Mass Communication in partnership with UNICEF Assam
Background
The Indian Constitution has ample
provisions for protection, development and welfare of children. There are a
wide range of laws that guarantee children their rights and entitlements as
provided in the Constitution as well as in the UN Convention. The
UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child was adopted by the UN General
Assembly and the Declaration was accepted by the Government of India.
The Convention revalidates the rights
guaranteed to children by the Constitution of India, and is, therefore, a
powerful weapon to contest forces that deny these rights. The Convention has
added legal and moral dimensions to child's rights and the obligation to
fulfill children’s basic needs. However, these rights and policies become
meaningless unless the life of the child in the family and community improves. This
challenge of ensuring that child rights are met for every child is a pertinent
issue and requires the Government’s commitment to the cause of children.
The
UN Convention consists of 41 articles, each of which details a different type
of right. All the rights are considered important and they interact with one
another to form an integrated set of rights. A common approach is to group
these articles together under the following themes:
·
Survival rights:
include the child’s right to life and the needs that are most basic to
existence, such as nutrition, shelter, an adequate living standard, and access
to medical services.
·
Development rights:
include the right to education, play, leisure, cultural activities, access to
information, and freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
·
Protection rights:
ensure children are safeguarded against all forms of abuse, neglect and
exploitation, including special care for refugee children; safeguards for
children in the criminal justice system; protection for children in employment;
protection and rehabilitation for children who have suffered exploitation or
abuse of any kind.
·
Participation rights:
encompass children's freedom to express opinions, to have a say in matters
affecting their own lives, to join associations and to assemble peacefully. As
their capacities develop, children should have increasing opportunity to
participate in the activities of society, in preparation for adulthood.
The Convention defines a 'child' as a
person till the age of 18, unless the laws of a particular country set the
legal age for adulthood younger. The Committee on the
Rights of the Child, the monitoring body
for the Convention, has encouraged States to review the age of majority if it
is set below 18 and to increase the level of protection for all children under
18.
The Constitution also guarantees
rights that are specifically applicable to children include:
- Right to free and compulsory
elementary education for all children in the 6-14 year age group
- Right to be protected from any
hazardous employment till the age of 14 years
- Right to be protected from being abused
and forced by economic necessity to enter occupations unsuited to their age
or strength
- Right to
equal opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and
in conditions of freedom and dignity and guaranteed protection of
childhood and youth against exploitation and against moral and material
abandonment
- Right to early childhood care and
education to all children until they complete the age of six years
In addition, children
also have access to rights as equal citizens of India, just as any other adult
male or female like Right to equality
(Article 14), Right against discrimination (Article 15) etc.
Thematic discourse
for the Seminar
The seminar seeks to raise critical questions on current trends
in journalism where the visibility of children’s issues seems low on the public
agenda. Ethical standards and critical reporting of child related issues still
remain to be prioritized against sensationalist portrayal of children. In
particular, vulnerable and marginalized children often remain outside the
purview of mainstream media’s interest to report on issues that affect their
lives or enable participation of children in the public debate in matters
affecting them. This becomes even more
critical when reporting is conducted in case of children living in vulnerable circumstances,
such as in case of specially abled children, children in institutions, ethnic
minorities, poor children, children who work and live in the streets, children
in conflict with the law and children affected by HIV, children affected by
violence. In most cases reporting on children is not always positive and efforts
for appropriate media representation of children are rarely made. The focus and
attention has been invariably on sensationalist media coverage of children in
difficult circumstances with little respect for their rights or welfare.
It is surprising
that much of the media content created for and distributed to children around
the globe is ubiquitous with gender and racial stereotypes, violence, and
commercialization. Critics charge that much of children’s media suppresses
imagination, provides limited opportunities for identification with a variety
of types of characters, and encourages unhealthy and risky behaviors. Clearly,
much of the media created for children does not promote the best interest of
children. Yet
children have the right to media that respond to their needs, reflect their
experiences, and respect them as more than consumers in a global economy and
most importantly, children have a right to participate on issues relating to
them. At a time when technological advances make it possible to reach more
children around the world, and include more voices in the global information
flow, we need to examine the role of the media in social transformation of
children’s lives.
Media has the greatest potential of bringing
to the forefront issues affecting children such as school drop-out, exploitation
due to trafficking, child labour, abuse, involvement of children in armed
conflict, sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Mainstream
media with its great potential for a widespread reach has immense potentiality
to become a vehicle for children to showcase their multifarious stories which
they experience in their daily lives; their everyday challenges the obstacles they
overcome as well as their participation in different activities. Scheduling and
planning programmes and identify appropriate news and features on children can
impact effectively on policy makers on the one hand as well as provide an
opportunity to children to participate in discussions concerning them. Yet,
despite such capability, power and influence of media, facilitate children to
exercise their rights and provide adequate space on them it is unfortunate that
no specific policy or plan for reporting on children has ever been made. The
sporadic initiatives by the very few individuals and media houses have not left
a mark and promises for a sustained d initiative can hardly be seen.
The seminar will pose these pertinent
questions and will discuss and understand initiatives that are already underway
as well as opportunities that can still be made to help identify ways to promote
and protect the rights of children by taking a more pro-active role by
sensitizing community members, parents and children on one hand and the media
on the other.
The
Call for Papers
The Call for papers will provide a scope
to raise the issue of Child Rights for discussion and deliberation in the
public domain through active participation at the seminar and submissions of
thematic papers. The questions are many -
do children have rights? If so, what are they? And how are these rights need to
be interpreted and protected in a world dramatically changed by the media where
children consume and communicate? The answers to these queries on children’s
rights have continued to pose questions that are both difficult and somewhat
uncomfortable to answer and also lack consensus as many believe it should have
been sought by now.
When we consider the effects of media on
children, the questions become more complex and the answers more argumentative.
Therefore there is an urgent need to explicitly examine the vital role of media
which can create awareness on children ́s right to access information and
freedom of expression and more importantly, demand their protection from
harmful and violent media content as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights
of the Child.
The thematic rubric of the seminar is as
mentioned below:
- Constitutional
Rights and challenges
- Media
representation of children
- Media
content on children
- Media
access by children
- Children
Rights and media in Northeast India
- Visual
media and children : Internet and Pornography
- Specially
abled children and media
- Children
in conflict zones
The language of the seminar will be in
English and participants are welcome from disciplines such as Journalism,
Social Science, Development studies, Humanities, Communication, Development
Communication and from NGO’s, Social and Child welfare institutions.
Faculty members from Northeastern Universities and Colleges, interested post graduate and research scholars are encouraged to participate and send their abstracts on or before 08 October, 2013 to chime.jmc@eflushc.ac.in ( Please give the subject as Abstract for CHIME 2013 Seminar)
Mr. Abir Suchiang
abir@eflushc.ac.in
Hello me @ +91- 9863199265
Executive Member :
Ms Santidora Nongpluh
nongpluh@eflushc.ac.in
Student Coordinator :
Mr. Rajshekhar Rajkhowa (rajshekhar@eflushc.ac.in)
Ms Sonam Sultana Shah ( sonam@eflushc.ac.in)
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