UN Universal Children's Day: Forum Position

Participants to an international conference titled “The abuse of Children in Europe and beyond”, held in Brussels, have unanimously launched a strong, clear-cut appeal to democratic institutions, governments and civil society – to stop any and all abuses committed against children.

The conference was organised by the Church of Scientology.

The conference has also signed a declaration demanding that forced drugging of children on so-called behavioural disorders be ceased immediately due to the growing evidence of harmful effects, such as suicidal tendencies and aggression – a key theme of the expert discussion panel at the end of the Universal Children’s Day conference. The Conference’s Declaration is being forwarded to European national governments and otherwise spread and circulated through the human rights NGO network.

In September, the Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concerns over a recently uncovered form of abuse that is increasingly widespread in developed countries. An estimated 17 million children are being prescribed mind-altering drugs for so-called behavioural disorders despite the growing evidence of their harmful effects, such as suicidal tendencies and aggression. Last August, the European Commission issued the strongest government warning to date against child antidepressant use, based on findings by the European Medicines Agency.

“We are introducing this new form of abuse on children because it is serious human rights issue,” said Martin Weightman, Human Rights Director of the European Office of the Church of Scientology International. “Children are being forced to take mind altering drugs stronger than some street drugs – all to “cure” a disease that is not based on scientific proof. The extensive damage such drugging can bring about is, in many ways, comparable to forcing a child to prostitution or to go to war or exploitative labour. Today’s conference fiercely opposed this abuse just as any other abuse on children.”

According to UNICEF reports there are:

• 246 million children engaged in exploitative child labour
• 140 million children who have never been to school
• 300,000 child soldiers, some as young as 8

 “The global community at times is morally outraged at the exploitation children endure,” said Dr Iftikhar Ayaz, Member of Minority Rights Group of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in his speech. “Yet child protection remedies regularly meet with resistance at all levels of society – from governments to community leaders to parents – because child abuse occurs mostly in private and is associated with criminality and corruption. In many cases, it is privately tolerated and publicly denied.”

“The medicalising of children’s behaviour problems and the attempt to control their behaviour with dangerous, psychiatric medication means that the new eugenics is already with us,” said conference participant Dr. Sami Timimi.

“As a scientist, a doctor, a father and a citizen,” continue Dr. Timimi, “I believe we have a moral obligation to do all we can to protect our children from suffering any further damage and I urge policy makers to carry out an urgent review of practice in the area of ADHD and the use of medication for control of children’s behaviour and to put in place a moratorium on further prescribing of psychiatric medication to children until such an investigation is completed. To remain silent on this issue is to betray our children.”

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The General Assembly of the United Nations recommended in 1954 that all countries institute a Universal Children’s Day. The date of 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.

With 192 ratifying countries, the Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely endorsed international human rights treaty. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is the body responsible for monitoring implementation of the Convention by its State parties.

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