Universal Children’s Day

The Canadian Equal Parenting Council wishes all parents best wishes on Universal Children’s day. If you are not able to see your children because of government actions (or by actions of State proxies such as judges, social agencies or other state funded vested interests) we understand your pain and the disadvantage that your children are suffering.

Here is a link about the event:

http://www.un.org/en/events/childrenday/

By resolution 836(IX) of 14 December 1954, the UN General Assembly recommended that all countries institute a Universal Children’s Day, to be observed as a day of worldwide fraternity and understanding between children. It recommended that the day was to be observed also as a day of activity devoted to promoting the ideals and objectives of the UN Charter on the Rights of Children and the welfare of the children of the world. The date 20 November, marks the day on which the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, in 1959, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in 1989.

One of the rights of the child enshrined in the above convention, signed and ratified by Canada, was the right to parenting by both parents. The convention assigns responsibility for ensuring that this happens, to states such as Canada.

Unfortunately, the Canadian federal government and provincial governments have deliberately and systematically avoided their responsibilities.  Overwhelmingly, governments exclude one parent, most often the father, from benefitting from State-funded family and parenting programs. Whether this is the Child Tax Benefit, domestic violence shelters, family courts or parental health programs, Canada runs a system of gender apartheid which belies the political rhetoric which our politicians so expertly use to hide the ugly reality of our exploitation and disadvantaging of children for money and careers.

A simple search on maternal health funding versus parental health or paternal health shows a millions to nothing ratio of State bias. The reality is that a mother in Iran or Afghanistan has a better chance of getting State help than a father in Canada.

The major cause of child disadvantage in Canada is deparenting. Most of that is caused by the sole custody bias of courts and government funding for vested interests promoting sole custody.

Of course, the United Nations has its own problems. UN agencies equate women with children (they are not children) and fund only programs for women. Not all women are parents and not all parents are women. The challenge should not be to divide parents by gender, which the UN does, but to work for collaboration between mothers and fathers, between men and women.

Here is how the UN gender apartheid approach fails in practice, and how and an “equal parenting” approach might work in international development. In Haiti, the UN (and most development NGOs) brought in aid and “prioritized” women and children. This meant providing food and shelter to women and to do that these agencies separated men and women, with the children with the women. Not surprisingly, the Haitian men and fathers were not willing to quietly starve to death, so the UN and the militaries of various nations, including Canada set up “security” –armed forces- to keep the men out. The ideological thinking of UN bureaucrats and NGOs was that there was violence and that women were vulnerable (ignoring that men were also targets of violence) so that justified military action to keep starving men from the food. Now, over 2 years after the earthquake, there is still a high level of violence, women are still dependent on NGOs, and the social situation is dangerous for all, and the situation for children is hardly better for the billions of dollars poured into Haiti. Another reality is that NGOs find it easier to raise money for women-only programs, although these do not solve problems, but build dependency.

But there is an alternative. In the Philippines, NGOs and governments could pay fathers and men in food and shelter in return for clearing roads, rebuilding homes and ensuring security. This payment should be enough to the men to ensure that their wives and children were fed, sheltered and secure. There is dignity in labour and pride in rebuilding after a natural disaster. This plan gives families a path to independence and rebuilding family assets, just as men did in the early days of Canadian pioneering, when they were given land to homestead, built farms and brought wives and then children to settle Canada. NGOs should be required to plan and work toward collaboration of mothers and fathers. The two parent family, often with extended family too, is the only sustainable form for raising children. While single parents should not be excluded or disadvantaged, working through the strengths of the two parent family reduces the size of the problem. Focusing only on women creates and perpetuates dependency. Dependency is not development.

Will the UN, Canada or NGOs change their thinking from fundraising, control, dependency, their careers and vested interests? Not likely. Not easily. And not without much pressure from parents and taxpayers who foot the bill for the current dysfunctional system.

So remember this day, Universal Children’s Day as one of government hypocrisy, failure and slavish obedience to vested interests.   Please write to your Canadian federal and provincial governments and ask that they act in the interest of children and ensure that kids have parenting by both parents. Ask that they implement the above international development equal parenting plan. Ask that they change laws and practice so that the exploitation of children’s needs by greedy self-serving careerists is replaced by practical solutions which work for children and parents.