Principle 22 from the “Manifesto” by Milena Aziza Rampoldi, the founder of ProMosaik, addresses what we understand by children’s rights and what we aim to put into practice. All publications by ProMosaik Childrenare based on this principle, titled “ProMosaik Means Commitment to Children’s Rights.”
As the Lebanese poet and artist Khalil Gibran said about children:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of life’s
own longing for itself.
You may wonder why children’s rights appear in our manifesto after women’s rights and after the fight against all forms of oppression, poverty, ignorance, and injustice, as well as slavery, exploitation, and human trafficking.
The answer is quite simple: If we start with the mothers and fathers of these children and protect their human rights, they, in turn, will advocate for the rights of their own children and the children of others.
UNICEF summarizes children’s rights in the following 10 points; however, in our opinion, these still need to be defined in an intercultural and interreligious context so that they can be applied authentically and sustainably in a mosaic society.
Equality: By this I mean, above all, equality of opportunity—and thus the right to start life under the same conditions. For ProMosaik, this applies to all children, regardless of culture, religion, origin, social status, or any special circumstances such as a disability, chronic condition, or illness.
Health: The prerequisites for the health of all children are water, food, and hygiene. Before we educate children, we must ensure that they have access to water, food, and hygiene. We must ensure that girls do not undergo female genital mutilation.
We must ensure that children are not sent to work in mines, carpet factories, or brothels, or forced to beg on the streets. We must ensure that children are not forced into marriage. By health, we mean both physical and mental well-being, which are only possible when children are loved and valued.
Education: Education is the fundamental right of all children to ensure equal opportunities within the community and society. Education means actively fighting against prejudice, inhumane traditions, ignorance, and poverty. Education overcomes poverty and marginalization. Education means encounter, fostering tolerance, multi-perspective thinking, and empathy. Education is acquired so that it may then be passed on. Education is a resource that must be made accessible to all.
Play and Leisure: This right takes very different forms across various cultures and religions. Therefore, the promotion of play and leisure must be framed within an intercultural and interreligious paradigm.
Another important aspect is the appreciation of games and leisure activities that do not bow to the rules of capitalism and consumerism.
Creative, self-developed, and homemade games and leisure activities should be valued. This is how we create value. Games and leisure activities from other countries and cultures should find their place in our mosaic society. Game ideas should incorporate the experiences of children from all over the world and avoid any form of ethnocentrism.
Freedom of Expression and Participation: In this context, I find Barbara Leitner’s approach very good. She writes:
“Child care centers, as the first educational and upbringing institutions outside the family, are the places where children learn about democracy. There, they experience democracy by being able to contribute, learning to negotiate compromises, and realizing that their opinions matter. Experiences with participation and co-determination at a young age have a major influence on children’s further development. By explaining the connection between children’s rights and education and outlining a children’s rights-based approach, this guide offers early childhood educators a wide range of ideas on how to effectively involve children in the daycare setting. In addition, it provides guidance on collaborating with parents and fostering successful teamwork in the implementation of children’s rights.”
It is very important to emphasize here that democracy is not a monologue but a space for polylogue, in which diverse perspectives on democracy, involvement, and participation should be incorporated—perspectives that draw on the cultural heritage of the many cultures and religions that help shape our mosaic society.
The difficulty of dealing with diversity and valuing differences should be understood here as a challenge. Children must not be given the impression that the views of their own culture and religion are inferior, while the views of the majority are regarded as guiding social principles. For this makes them feel marginalized. Radicalization and violence arise precisely where intercultural and interreligious appreciation and value creation are lacking.
Nonviolent Upbringing: We live in a world where physical, emotional, and sexual violence against children is ubiquitous. Nonviolent upbringing and the right to an upbringing free from physical, emotional, and sexual violence are therefore essential for building a peaceful present and future. Educational institutions serve as important spaces where children can come together and engage in dialogue about trauma and violence.
Experiences of violence are addressed at school and must under no circumstances be ignored. Children bring violence from their families into school. Since the number of unreported cases is extremely high, the adults whom children turn to must be trained to recognize violence and to detect the signs of emotional abuse against children. Preventing and combating violence must begin in educational institutions.
Here, too, however, we must think and act in an intercultural and interreligious manner. In his “Triangle of Violence,” Johan Galtung so aptly illustrates how personal violence is visible, while cultural and structural violence, by contrast, are invisible.
Under no circumstances, however, should we overlook the violence that arises within educational institutions. For violence against children is not limited to the family and society outside the walls of educational institutions. Sexualized violence against children—such as that committed with impunity for decades in Catholic educational institutions and churches—must be stopped by all means necessary. Therefore, ProMosaik opposes any statute of limitations for sexual abuse of children.
Another form of violence that must not be underestimated is bullying and discrimination against children by other children, who often bring racist or ethnocentric ways of thinking from home into educational institutions and discriminate against children who are different. This applies not only to children from other countries but also to children with disabilities, who, according to ProMosaik, should be seen as an asset to educational institutions. Therefore, we call not only for the integration of these “others,” but also for their inclusion and appreciation. For ProMosaik, children with disabilities are an important source of value creation.
Here is an excerpt from the speech by Astrid Lindgren, who received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1978:
“But to those who are now so vociferously calling for stricter discipline and tighter reins, I would like to share what an elderly lady once told me. She was a young mother at a time when people still believed in the biblical saying, ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child.’ Deep down in her heart, she probably didn’t believe it at all, but one day her little son had done something for which, in her opinion, he deserved a beating—the first of his life. She told him to go out into the garden and look for a stick himself, which he was then to bring to her. The little boy went and was gone for a long time. Finally, he came back crying and said: “I couldn’t find a stick, but here’s a stone—you can throw that at me.” But then the mother began to cry too, for suddenly she saw everything through her child’s eyes. The child must have thought, “My mother really wants to hurt me, and she can do that with a stone, too.” She took her little son in her arms, and they both cried together for a while. Then she placed the stone on a shelf in the kitchen, and there it remained as a constant reminder of the promise she had made to herself at that moment: “NEVER USE VIOLENCE!””
From this story, as told by Astrid Lindgren, it’s easy to see how empathy is the cornerstone of a nonviolent approach to parenting.
Protection in War and While Fleeing: War is the most extreme form of violence, especially for children who are victims of war or, even worse, for children who are exploited as child soldiers in war.
War destroys a child’s psychological, emotional, familial, and social well-being. The child lives in fear. Their needs can no longer be met. The child no longer feels safe. They lose trust in themselves and in their caregivers, whom they perceive as powerless, because no one can truly do anything to stop this war—instead, people merely watch, suffer, are constantly traumatized, or simply fall asleep hungry.
Often, fleeing is the path people take to leave the war zones in their countries of origin. They become refugees. International refugee law defines a refugee as a person who “is outside the country of which they are a national due to a well-founded fear of persecution on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, and is unable to avail themselves of the protection of that country or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail themselves of such protection” (Art. 1A, para. 2 of the Geneva Convention on Refugees).
ProMosaik opposes the division of people into refugees and non-refugees. Refugees are a product of our imperialist wars, which continue to be waged particularly in Africa and the Middle East to exploit natural resources, marginalize entire cultures and religious communities into poverty and despair, and continue to export weapons under the guise of human rights—preferably to all warring parties simultaneously—in order to reap even greater profits.
What we hope for is that people are welcomed as human beings and, in their host country, are afforded equal opportunities, experience inclusion, and immediately become part of the host society.
And this applies above all to the children of refugees, who should be educated in the host country’s educational institutions. Only through inclusion and by abolishing the term “refugee” once a “human being” has made their way to us can we overcome ethnocentric, racist, and far-right ideologies.
When refugees are no longer called refugees and live among us, and when there are no more refugee barracks or even refugee camps, these people will be perceived as human beings and not as refugees. A far-right demonstration against a refugee shelter is easier than a far-right demonstration against a refugee family living in a five-story “Mosaikhaus” alongside other families from all over the world. I don’t know if it would be just as easy to set the Mosaikhaus on fire or throw a rock through one of its windows.
Protection from Economic and Sexual Exploitation
We would like to call this issue by its real name. As a global community, we have a duty to protect children from exploitative child labor, prostitution, and sexual abuse during childhood.
Forced labor by children cannot be compared to forced labor by adults. This is because children are defenseless. Children are at the mercy of their tormentors.
Children often do not understand that the violence they experience is wrong and has nothing to do with them—that they are not to blame for what is being done to them. The same applies to child prostitution and the sexual abuse of children, especially by those entrusted with their care, such as representatives of the Church, whom children perceive as authority figures.
Prevention and prosecution must go hand in hand to eradicate these brutal crimes against children. For such suffering never heals. And within Catholicism, it is also urgently necessary to question celibacy as a way of life.
Parental Care. Children have the right to parents and their care. Therefore, in the event of divorce, it is very important that children retain contact with both parents.
Mothers’ rights and fathers’ rights should be regarded as equal and promoted.
Special Care and Support for People with Disabilities. Here, ProMosaik would like to go a step further and speak of inclusion. People with disabilities are equal members of our society. Disability and illness are part of life, just as death is.
Disability, like illness, must not be hidden. Children with disabilities belong in educational institutions, for they add value to our society. Children without disabilities learn from children with disabilities just how diverse life is and how valuable the lives of those who do not conform to the norm truly are.
In this context, I would also like to mention how the inclusion of children with disabilities sends an anti-fascist political message. Never again! There must be no more abortions of children with disabilities. Nor should there be forced sterilization of people with mental illness or women with hereditary diseases. We must not forget that the Nazi era, with its persecution and killing of people with disabilities, is not as far in the past as some would like to believe.
