Neil Boothby is U.S. Government Special Advisor and Senior Coordinator to the Administrator on Children in Adversity. Photo Credit: Columbia University.
I’ve found there are some things on which everyone can agree.
- Children need strong beginnings – health, nutrition and nurturing care – to live their most productive lives;
- Children grow up best in the care of loving families;
- Children have the right to live free of violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect.
These truths offer a simple moral imperative, but they are also backed by science. Neuroscientists, pediatricians and economists alike have demonstrated that a promising future belongs to those nations, communities and families that invest wisely in their children. I’ve studied the irrefutable links between the wellbeing of children and the economic and social progress of nations – they provide a compelling agenda for strengthening policies and investments to ensure that all children grow up within protective family care, and free from deprivation, exploitation and danger.
Following the genocide in Rwanda, over a million reed thin and weary refugees poured into the Goma refugee camp in what was then Zaire. In the midst of cholera, relief workers brought infants and children to make-shift orphanages in an effort to save lives. Little babies were lined up like loaves of bread on cots, given vaccines to stave off preventable illnesses and fed routinely through IVs. Yet they still died by the hundreds. It’s called “failure to thrive”—the lack of human contact and nurturance required to live.
I looked into the eyes of many of these Rwandan babies who “failed to thrive”. It was an experience that continues to haunt me to this day. In a brief moment, I witnessed the flicker of God-given potential dim – a desperate fight at first, then resignation and a ghost-like stare until death. It’s the opposite of when I looked into my own son’s eyes and, for the first time, he recognized me and responded with delight!
Last year 6.9 million children died from preventable causes. We have the science to explain what happens within the bodies and brains of children who face deprivation, exploitation and danger. We have the evidence that demonstrates how early intervention break cycles of poverty, inequality and violence. We have empirical data that shows investments made early in the lives of children yield greater returns than at any other point in the life cycle. We have other champions and partner organizations on the ground prepared to roll up their sleeves and scale up what is proven to work. We work with governments all over the world that are prepared to partner to do more and better on behalf of their children in need.
In June, the Governments of Ethiopia, India and the United States, in collaboration with UNICEF, hosted the Child Survival Call to Action. As an important follow on to this global effort, this week the first-ever U.S. Government Action Plan on Children in Adversity (PDF) will be released. It is a testament to the fact that the U.S. government takes the science – and the investment – seriously. With significant investments in international development, the technical expertise and research capabilities embedded within key agencies, and diplomatic outreach, the U.S. government is well positioned to lead and mobilize around this sensible and strategic global agenda for children in adversity – children who face poverty, live on the streets or in institutions, are exploited for their labor or sex, recruited into armed groups, affected by HIV/AIDS, or separated from their families as a result of conflict or disaster.
The Action Plan I have helped to develop outlines objectives that will deliver ambitious and positive results for children. It also identifies programs that work and that can be taken to scale. It demonstrates that we can measure impact and affect change.
Yet, this work is about more than science, or sound economic investments. It is about the miracle and potential of each child, and our profound duty to care for our children, and in so doing, protect our future.
I have spent 40 years working to create a world in which all children grow up within protective family care and free from deprivation, exploitation and danger. The U.S. Government Action Plan moves us closer towards this vision. I invite you to join this global conspiracy of goodness.
Dr. Boothby has taken a leave of absence from Columbia University, where he is the Allan Rosenfield Professor of Clinical Forced Migration and Health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. As Director of the Program on Forced Migration and Health, he has lead several research initiatives, including the Child Protection in Crisis (CPC) Learning Network—a constellation of over 150 agencies working in 32 countries on the development of an evidence base for efficacious child health and protection programming. Through the CPC Network, Dr. Boothby established university based research centers and graduate training programs in Africa, Asian and the Middle East.
I admire but I do not share this optimism. It does not reflect reality. Children are exploited in American culture. Nurturing seems to be an accident. We are the ultimate culture of indifference. We mean well. But our behavior is not evidence of a conspiracy of goodness. I deal with HIV+ young boys, many runaways, who are out there doing sex work. It is a landscape of sheer and brutal survival.
Many adolescents in this at-risk group end up killing themselves. The system’s response is usually to arrest them, and incarcerate them. The HIV rate, the death rate, the tuberculosis rate, and just plain and simple rapes in child detention facilities is a national nightmare. It is a disgrace. The estimate that there are a million homeless children in this culture is bogus; the real number is much higher.
If we actually cared about kids in this culture, why are so many of them on waiting lists for HIV drugs.
They are lectured to that their HIV rates (going higher) are unacceptable. But then they are denied the medication they need. We push HIV testing.
How many American juvenile detention facilities test. None.
How many provide HIV medical support. None.
Wake up and smell the media for what it is. Sound bites and rhetoric. It does not REFLECT the reality too many children live.
The kids I deal with eat pizza out of dumpsters. They don’t have big dreams. They’re marginalized because that is what poverty does. They understand that the focus has to be to just make it through the day.
Drugs are an escape. For kids who can’t get antiretrovirals, they have no problem finding heroin.
We mouth lots of words. But the evidence of our indifference toward how we perceive and nurture our children is everywhere. The men who pick up the boys I deal with to have sex with them (oral sex is five bucks and anal sex is twenty), are almost always married.
How do I know this.
I go to the source every day. They understand what they are up against. They also understand there is not much hope to be found out there. Hope does not mean them, and they are not alone.
Fully half the children in this culture live in poverty.
I would love to believe in a conspiracy of goodness. But I am compelled to live in the real world.
The author of this article speaks of having worked with the orphans left from the 1994 Rwanda Genocide – he knows the dark side of things.
I love that Tim Barrus is working with the population that he is working with – and I understand that his perspective would be bleak. BUT – let’s take the good “with” the bad. Wherever there are programs to nurture children – let’s support them. No child actually gets as much nurturance as they “deserve” – but EVERY child that IS nurtured – is a blessing!!!