Children's Rights (Hayat newspaper)

Interview with Mrs. Baria Alamiiddin for Al-Hayat Newspaper, 1995.

Q1: How would you describe the situation of the Jordanian child?

We consider child welfare and development a national priority because more than half our population is eighteen years old and younger and twenty percent is under 5 years. During the past three decades, Jordan has created a special set of laws for children that range from the rights of the disabled child to foster homes, day care-centers and juvenile delinquency. In 1980, Jordan implemented UNICEF's Child Survival and Development Revolution that led to a reduction in infant and maternal mortality rates through the use of low cost interventions such as growth monitoring, oral rehydration, breast-feeding and immunization. It was also one of the first countries to ratify the Charter on the Rights of the Arab child in 1984 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991.

In 1992, my husband, King Hussein, and I patronized the National Children's Conference, which adopted a National Plan of Action and subsequently led to the establishment of a National Task Force for Children, that will, under my chairmanship, monitor the implementation of the National Plan and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

According to UNICEF's "Progress of Nations 1995", Jordan has made significant achievements in the area of child development. We rank second in the region in the fields of education (98% of our children reach grade 5) and health (very low under 5 mortality and malnutrition rates) and our nation-wide immunization campaigns have placed Jordan among the top 45 countries in the world to achieve immunization rates above 90%.

Q2: What are some of the problems that Jordan faces with refugee children?

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Jordan was faced with a massive influx of refugees, who had a profound impact on our population growth rate that reached 3.2 compared to the developing countries' average of 2.1 This population increase put immense pressure on all our services, particularly health and education, and affected the quality of life across all sectors of Jordanian society. For example, during the Gulf Crisis, most of our schools at that time were on double shifts and seemed to be perpetually on double shifts with every new wave of refugees. However, despite these setbacks, people were practically taking the shirts off their own backs to help the evacuees. That was an image of concentrated humanitarian spirit and something, of which I, as a Jordanian, will always be proud.

Q3: Are there any programs being prepared or implemented to prepare the Jordanian and refugee child for the peace era after decades of war?

The Noor Al Hussein Foundation is in the process of developing an "Education for Peace" program for schools and youth organizations to familiarize them with all aspects of the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. In addition, the Foundation will also incorporate peace education at the grassroots level as part of its comprehensive integrated development approach. (Mrs. Mufti)

Another ongoing project is the Seeds of Peace Program, which is a two week summer camp in the United States for children from countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa, including Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Qatar, Egypt, Morocco and Israel. At the camp, Arab and Israeli children interact together by participating in a variety of activities that range from team sports to theatrical plays and coexistence seminars. The program's main goal is to introduce Arab and Israeli children to each other in the hope that their camping experience forges lasting bonds of friendship and understanding between them and slowly erases the painful legacy of suffering and violence in the Middle East.

Q4: What are the priorities and goals and action plans that the Jordanian government and Her Majesties' Foundation have to tackle the challenges that face the many problems that children face in many areas of their lives?

The International Forum on the Rights of the Child has defined three crucial rights: the right to health, the right to education and the right to genuine protection. Regarding child health care, the Noor Al Hussein Foundation has three active projects: the Institute for Child Health and Development, which is directly involved in child health care and is the preliminary component of the planned National Children's Hospital, and two other projects that are indirectly involved: the Quality of Life Project and the Population Program for the Grassroots.

The Institute for Child Health and Development was founded in 1986 with the support of the Swedish "Save the Children" to raise child health care standards in Jordan by improving growth monitoring, diagnosis and treatment practices. It is the first and only facility to monitor and assess child growth and development. It conducts primary field research among children, and provides information to parents and teachers to increase awareness of early signs of childhood diseases and disabilities.

The Institute includes a model Mother and Child Health (MCH) Clinic and also has a Child Development Unit, which provides development assessment and supervision of minor and moderate disabilities through play therapy, and designs programs to improve the monitoring of physical health, psychological and social needs of children under the age of six. It has an aggressive outreach program that provides follow-up care and education for new mothers and the entire family on hygiene, nutrition, family planning and proper methods of breast feeding. Harvard University's Institute for Social and Economics Policy in the Middle East cited the Institute as a model for its comprehensive approach and described its "psycho-social" services as the best of any country in the region.

The Quality of Life Project was initiated in cooperation with the World Health Organization and the Ministry of Health. Its holistic development approach caters to the economic, social and cultural needs by integrating income-generating schemes, health, education, national heritage, the environment and community participation in the program. The health component focuses on pre- and post-natal care, family planning and health education. The Noor Al Hussein Foundation has developed this project as a national model for socio-economic development in Jordan.

The Population Program for the Grassroots is a three year program established in 1994 in cooperation with the government of Jordan and UNFPA. It aims at addressing Jordan's present rate of annual population growth by promoting awareness about population issues. The project aims at improving the well-being of the family by introducing mother and child health care clinics and birth-spacing in thirteen remote villages throughout Jordan, which are served by the Institute for Child Health and Development and the Quality of Life Project.

As for education, the Noor Al Hussein Foundation has developed diverse projects and programs in cooperation with the Ministry of Education such as the Jubilee School, which is an independent co-educational secondary boarding school for scholarship students with special emphasis on the less developed parts of the country. We also established Jordan's first children's museum known as the Children's Heritage and Science Museum, which is the first of hands-on recreational and educational museum in the Arab world. The Mobile Life and Science Museum is an outreach program especially designed for rural children to teach them about natural history, sciences, geography, environmental protection, health and hygiene. The Theater-in-Education Program is another non-traditional method to enhance children's learning experiences by utilizing drama and theater as modern educational tools. We also founded the National Music Conservatory, which has the first and only children's orchestra in Jordan.

Regarding the impact of violence on children, Jordan already has stringent laws in force protecting children from physical abuse; however, more needs to be done to raise public awareness about the different forms of abuse be it physical, emotional, intellectual, moral, spiritual or any form of neglect. A recent child abuse workshop held in Amman last month, whose participants included children, victims of abuse, police officers, psychologists, lawyers and representatives from the Ministries of Education and Social Development, found that reported cases of domestic violence had doubled in the past decade. The children noted that many abused victims do not know to whom to turn and recommended that an awareness campaign informing children of their rights should be introduced in children's TV programs and included in their educational curriculum. The National Task Force for Children, which I mentioned earlier, will play a vital role in protecting and promoting children's rights.

Q5: The title of your speech in the Paris Conference is (The family as a safety net for the child and the Nation). How important would you say is the role of the family in a world where media and the society is playing a bigger role than ever?

The rapid technological changes we are experiencing / undergoing are a mixed blessing. Take the internet as an example. The internet is the cheapest and quickest way to transfer updated information around the world and yet, according to an article I read a couple of weeks ago, one of its main problems is the increase of uncontrolled pornography. Violence, on the other hand, appears to be part and parcel of almost any show we watch on television today. We must counter these external influences by empowering the family and our social values, which bind individuals, families and communities together and provide a safety net for our children.