Tunnel-vision approach of child rights groups

WE in Mothers At Home agree fully with the sentiments expressed by Maireád Scannell (Letters, January 16) concerning the tunnel-visioned approach to child abuse by children’s rights organisations like One in Four and Barnardos.

These groups proclaim themselves as protagonists for children’s rights, yet they appear, as Ms Scannell rightly said, “deaf, dumb and blind” to the State’s persistent denial of most of the fundamental rights of every child.

Ms Scannell listed some of those fundamental rights. Mothers at Home would like to highlight another one — on which One in Four and Barnardos have also been strangely silent, ie, the right of children under the age of three to be cared for in their own home by their own parents.

Surely, Barnardos and One in Four are aware of what highly respected children’s rights advocates have been saying for decades and which is now scientifically proven, thanks to the advent of MRI scanning: children under three should be at home with mum to prevent irreparable damage being done to their health and wellbeing. Irreparable damage — is this not child abuse?

UNICEF has at last seen the light in this regard. A recent report from that organisation states that “governments are taking a high-stakes gamble with the long-term wellbeing of children by subjecting them to long hours of formal childcare from a very young age”.

The report recommends that all children should be cared for by parents at home, at least during the first 12 months of life.

So the health and welfare of our children has for years been put at risk by government policies that force two parents to seek paid employment outside the home. Yet Barnardos and One-in-Four have never called for heads to roll on this account.

Mothers at Home is a children’s rights organisation and we agree with Cardinal Seán Brady: Bishop McGee is correct in his decision not to resign.

Nora Bennis

President

Mothers at Home

‘Curabhan’

North Circular Road

Limerick