Children's Rights Under the Searchlight

Alison Back reviews an important book on the children's rights movement

The Fight for the Family: The Adults Behind Children's Rights by Lynette Burrows, Family Education Trust, 1998 55pp, pb, RRP £4.00

In this book the author presents an informative and somewhat damning critique of the children's rights movement, revealing the true motives and ideologies of the leaders behind it. She exposes the incestuous nature of the movement and extreme lack of grass-roots support.

In the opening chapter, Lynette Burrows outlines the underlying principles of the children's rights movement. One of these, she says, is the attitude that the interests of the child and those of the parents are necessarily at odds with each other. Parents are assumed to be hostile to the interests of their children. According to proponents of the movement, parents are overprotective and hold their children back, to their detriment. The predominance of such a model over generations, they assert, has inhibited children from developing their full capacity.

Consequently, those behind the children's rights movement suggest that social workers and childcare experts are better suited to bringing up children than parents. The result is that parents are replaced by "professionals". This, the author rightly argues, marginalises the position and rights of parents as the prime protectors and educators of their children and diminishes the importance of the family. Mrs Burrows also highlights the role of the media in providing uncritical support of the children's rights movement and thus lending credence to it.

Incestuous

In chapter 2 she goes on to give hard evidence of the incestuous nature of children's rights organisations. Two detailed appendices help to give a clear picture of how a handful of individuals between them are founders, directors or advisors to all of the organisations. Some surprising facts are presented, such as that one man, Peter Newell, is either the founder or co-founder of all of the seven children's rights organisations currently in existence. From this chapter and accompanying appendices, the point is clearly made that, while the movement appears to be large and widespread, at its roots there are a very small number of people controlling and running the whole show. Some details are given regarding the funding of these organisations; the same sources are cited again and again for different organisations. Individual support, says Mrs Burrows, is conspicuous by its absence, in respect of both time and financial donations.

"At its roots there are a very small number of people controlling and running the whole show"

Chapter 3 is also very telling. Using the example of their anti-smacking policy, the author dispels some widespread myths about the movement, namely that it is not based on credible scientific research and neither does it represent the views of the vast majority of its grass-roots supporters nor the general public. (90% of parents in the UK have been consistently found to believe that smacking is necessary.) Nicola Wells has done a great work in providing the research which makes up the bulk of this chapter.

Inconsistency

The next chapter tells of the unfortunate effects of the introduction of the Children Act of 1989. Whether or not the children's rights movement has Marxist or communist roots as the author suggests, in this chapter she makes one of the strongest points in the book. She points out the inconsistency of the ideology of a movement which claims to be campaigning for children's rights to be protected and yet makes no mention of such things as the conceived child's right to be born, or the right of a child to have both a father and a mother, over and above the rights of single people or homosexual couples to have children.

The children's rights movement is aiming for "the abolition of the family and the removal of the rights of parents to choose how they raise their own children"

In chapter 5, evidence is presented of the connection between children's rights groups and paedophile and homosexual rights activists. One of the most damaging results of this unholy alliance was the de facto abolition of the age of heterosexual consent which occurred once the contraceptive pill came into widespread use amongst young people. The following chapter continues in much the same vein.

Selectiveness

In the final chapter, the author points out the selectiveness of the children's rights movement; it does nothing to protect these vulnerable young people from some of the things which present a very great risk, such as bullying, delinquency, poor conditions in housing estates where children live, drug-pushers and paedophiles. She catalogues the efforts of children's rights groups to establish a commissioner, and details some of the potentially unhelpful consequences of such a move.

The conclusion sums up the aims of the movement, namely the abolition of the family and the removal of the rights of parents to choose how to raise their own children. Mrs Burrows makes the important point that the government needs to listen to the people on these issues, and not to their self-elected representatives.

On the whole, this is a well-written, well-defended book. The author reveals some startling things about the children's rights movement and its agenda which the public needs to know. The occasional weak spot in the coherence of the text and the lack of supporting evidence in one or two places does not detract in any way from the overall message and impact of the book. Lynette Burrows' book is one which needs to be read and heeded so that the children's rights movement does not carry on unhindered until the abolition of the family is brought about.

Alison Back is a graduate in Physiology, currently working with The Christian Institute.

This article was originally published in Families for Discipline newsletter, Issue 6, Spring 1998.

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