Images of drowned
Syrian child, Aylan, brought unusually closer home to many of us, the vast
magnitude of displaced people and the completely contingent manner in which
they try to make new lives, seek shelter and care for family. And of course,
the fact that governments were keen to keep displaced people out. Aylan, 3
years old, was trying to reach the Greek island of Koch, having already been
displaced from three different places- when the 15 foot long, ramshackle boat
he was travelling in, capsized. Alongside Aylan, his 5 year old brother and
mother were also killed, leaving the father as the sole surviving member of the
family. Media interest in the image and he family revealed all too familiar
stories of a people, torn by strife trying to eke out peaceful living without
any assistance whatsoever from governments or states.
Interesting was the
response of The Times of India, which
desisted from pusblishing Aylan’s photo on its front page for the first couple of
days, and did so only after the image was circulated innumerable times on
social media. The image on the front page carried with it the rejoinder that
the TOI had been reluctant to publish the image, apprehensive of the shock and
discomfort it must cause its readers. Of course, the complete arbitrariness of
the displacement of the group of people left at lurch by Syria and European
nations alike, represented by this drowned child, barely found mention. But
TOI’s publication of the image pointed to the potential of the image to
mobilise public sentiment across the globe and perhaps to also prompt state
action.
The question then
is, what was it about this image? Is a child’s death necessary to bring
attention to wide spread humanitarian crisis? If yes, then yet another image of
a child, this time shared only on social media, would beg to differ. In an
article titled “This Indian child deserves your attention as much as the Syrian
boy” (available here), columnist Supriya Sharma argues that we pick and choose
humanitarian causes that do not ask uncomfortable questions. For example, the
image of a malnourished Indian child, like the one accompanying this editorial
(borrowed from Sharma’s article), displaced by a coal mine, does not manage to
evoke the same sort of response, either in social media or among governments.
Both these instances
bring to the fore an implicit understanding that children are specially
vulnerable and images of displaced children serve to highlight the extent to
which human lives are at the mercy of political and economic interests.
UNHCR data reveals
that more than 43 million people worldwide are now forcibly displaced as a
result of conflict and persecution, the highest number since the mid-1990s.
Several million people remain displaced because of natural disasters. More than
15 million of the uprooted are refugees who fled their home countries, while
another 27 million are people who remain displaced by conflict within their own
homelands -- so-called ‘internally displaced people.’
Almost half of the
world’s forcibly displaced people are children and many spend their entire
childhood far from home. Whether they are refugees, internally displaced,
asylum-seekers or stateless, children are at a greater risk of abuse, neglect,
violence, exploitation, trafficking or forced military recruitment. They may
also have witnessed or experienced violent acts and/or been separated from
their families.
International law
has long made a distinction between refugees, who have crossed a state border
and are protected by the 1951 Convention, and the internally displaced, who are
not. But research reveals that in terms of their needs and vulnerabilities,
however, the effects of their forced displacement is similar: they face loss of
their home, their livelihood, their community. Regardless of whether they have
crossed a border or not, they deserve help. Children living without parents are
especially vulnerable due to lack of adult protection and scarce economic
resources.
In this issue RWOnline
has tried to capture violence and discrimination experienced by children within
and outside refugee camps, including gender-based violence directed at girls. Incidentally
all three of the articles below chronicle lives of refugee children within
special spaces, that raise questions about the spaces themselves as well as the
status of the children within them.
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