REFUGEE CHILDREN PEOPLE FROM UKRAINE
STOCK FREE IMAGES: PEOPLE FLEEING
Walking to my office/study at home, I invited my dogs to come inside as I
have an electric heater in the office as protection against the winter cold of
South Africa. And it struck me very forcefully that there are people outside in
the cold without protection. Not only close by my house in Rivonia,
Johannesburg, but further away and then internationally there are people
fleeing from the madman Putin’s war in Ukraine.
And my mind drifted towards refugees who are just drifting more or less
aimlessly to escape what other humans are doing to them.
Yes, I know there are untold thousands of people in all the parts of the
world that are living on the streets – poverty stricken and homeless. I am
constantly thinking of them as well.
But for the moment I am aiming my thoughts and writing skills towards refugees:
from deepest Africa and then more specific towards those millions on people
fleeing from that mad man Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine. It is alleged
that there are more than 12.5 million refugees and/or internally displaced persons from Ukraine [and counting]. See some write-ups about it by clicking
here and the UNHCR’s website. To put it into perspective, there are about 2 million people in Botswana,
a neighbouring country of South Africa. That means for Botswana for instance,
the entire country is devoid of any people and then some.
Considering these millions from Ukraine, fleeing under severe
circumstances: extreme
weather conditions,
no transport, no food or inadequate food supplies, no water or inadequate water supplies. How do you clean your baby? How to you prepare food? You are no longer
in the security of your home where you have access to a proper fitted kitchen?
Ablutions? A couch or chair to sit on and to read your favourite book? Or your favourite poems?
You are driven from a secure place where you created art? Paintings. Sculpture.
Building enormous puzzles.
You are out in the open, fleeing for your dear lives – and maybe you had
to leave loved ones behind: they are too old or too frail or to ill to travel
and to brave this perilous journey. And yet, you had to go.
My mind drifts towards the children. And it is very easy and very glib
for me in the RSA to state that according to our Children’s Act, that when you
turn 18 years of age, that you are now considered to be an adult. When I grew
up, the threshold was still 21 years. I know of a youngster at her 21st
birthday party, very arrogantly said to an elderly gentleman: “Now I can marry without
my father’s permission!” And she was quite chuffed with her say-so. He looked
her straight into her eyes and calmly replied: “Would you like to do that?”
I am assisting some refugees and their children who are in South Africa
with their legal fights with the Department of Home Affairs, who are, sadly so,
not very helpful and the DHA does not even comply with our High Court’s orders.
That leaves an extremely bad taste in my mouth. We are busy litigating about
South African citizenship and related matters. These matters are
not easy, and that is an understatement of the year.
I have not even touched on the problem of statelessness which is growing
by the day.
The profile of refugees, for instance from the Rwandan genocide during
April 1994 are changing drastically and rapidly. I am expecting the same to
happen with the refugees from Ukraine. Without any in depth study I find that
the off spring of these refugees [from Rwanda]
present a different profile than their parents. The refugees got married to
other refugees from their own country or from other countries; they are meeting others from different countries and they get married
to citizens from the host country. And these offspring present difficulties
with inter alia citizenship. Citizenship is an easy political ploy to harass foreigners such as refugees. The aspect
of citizenship will stay over for another Blog post.
Back to refugee children. I am reading extensively the international
laws pertaining to to
the refugee children who are very vulnerable;
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [the UNHCR] has a lot of
things to say about the
treatment of children. There is a myriad of International Conventions in place to legally look after them. And then the UNHCR has Guidelines in place to give
guidance to law enforcement bodies, government officials and such like people
on the implementation of the Conventions. Dealing with South African authorities it seems
at times as if these people do not even know that these Conventions and
guidelines exist.
Do I have to state it
in so many words that children are very easily exploited? Yes, they are.
It is expected that countries should sign these Conventions and become part of an international bulwark against the abuse of refugee children. But having said that, how can you expect countries to protect children, if those very same countries are committing these atrocities? Take Sudan for instance. This evil regime is executing their own citizens, and now the international community expect that same evil regime to treat children humanely? How on earth is it possible? And they are not treating children with dignity and respect. You may read the UNHCR’s report about Sudan by clicking on this link.
How on earth can we
expect the Russian government to treat the children humanely when they send in
young soldiers to kill and to exploit the vulnerable in Ukraine?
It is remarkable how close these Conventions and Guidelines are to our
own Constitution’s the Bill of Rights Chapter 2; at time it is word for word
the same as can be found in our Constitution. Section 7 of Chapter 2 reads:
“Rights
(1) This Bill of Rights is a cornerstone of democracy in South Africa.
It enshrines the rights of all people in our country and affirms the democratic
values of human dignity, equality and freedom.
(2) The state must respect, protect, promote and fulfil the rights in
the Bill of Rights.
(3) The rights in the Bill of Rights are subject to the limitations
contained or referred to in section 36, or elsewhere in the Bill.”
I am just quoting the headings of the Human Rights Charter:
1. Equality;
2. Human dignity;
3. Life;
4. Freedom and security of the person;
5. Slavery, servitude and forced labour [CJC I thought slavery,
servitude and forced labour were “abolished” many, many years ago? These items
of human abuse in South Africa were from then on only examined academically and
by authors writing stories about it, like André P Brink in his novels: xxxx
insert the names here.]
6. Privacy;
7. Freedom of religion, belief and opinion;
8. Freedom of expression;
9. Assembly, demonstration, picket and petition;
10. Freedom of association;
11. Political rights;
12. Citizenship [I am at this point busy with litigation against the DHA
in respect of this aspect. Having said this, it should be kept in mind that the
entire Bill of Rights have some bearing on the other rights and should not be
read in a vacuum forgetting the other rights];
13. Freedom of movement and residence;
14. Freedom of trade, occupation and profession;
15. Labour relations;
16. Environment;
17. Property;
18. Housing;
19. Health care, food, water and social security;
20. Children [CJC this is an interesting one and the subject of this
write up and subject of my litigation referred to above];
21. Education;
22. Language and culture;
23. Cultural, religious and linguistic communities;
24. Access to information;
25. Just administrative action;
26. Access to courts;
27. Arrested, detained and accused persons.
Here are links to some of these international Conventions and the
Guidelines for you to read; if you don’t want to read it, please just take a
quick look:
Convention relating to the status of stateless persons: click here.
Convention on the reduction of statelessness: click here.
Guidelines on Statelessness: click here.
A quick word from me about statelessness: I mentioned it to a highly qualified legal academic whose immediate reaction was that it does not exist! Well, sad to say statelessness does exist: click here. There are millions that are stateless. Even at this moment that you are reading this blogpost, there are hundreds of thousands in Ukraine that are stateless: click here.
I do hope that you spare a thought or something else for the refugee
children that did not ask to be in that situation.
Write me an e-mail and tell me what you think: neelscoertse@wirelessza.co.za
