Demonising children has become the new method to avoid responsibility

Source: mprnews.org

Last week, hundreds of thousands of people came together in protest marches across over 700 US cities in a reaction to the recent surface images and recordings of children suffering separations from their families and being kept in cages.

These images taken from detention centres and holding facilities across the American borders and immigration centres circulated global media, causing international outrage and disbelief.

The US Governments response to these rightful criticisms?

Simply deflect any responsibility and present these children as threats to the state.

Admittedly the US Government have acknowledged the issue and have released their own photos and recordings from a children’s detention centres, but only in efforts to push their own narrative. Their footage clearly kept teenage boys at the foregrounding, hiding girls and young boys, suggesting that the administration would never detain such children.

Yet images released earlier show that this demographic within detention centres that the Trump Administration is so insistent upon is not a reality. Hundreds of immigrant children have been separated from their families regardless of whether they are girls or boys, or even if they are toddlers.

Though the Administration has made efforts to redeem themselves in some way, by choosing to only show children of a certain age or gender, they have split children into two different categories: kids deserving of sympathy, and kids who are not so deserving – because, in fact, the Government does not see them as kids at all. Teenage boys are being stripped of their youth and childhood and propelled into the identity of a “grown up”. From this they are then likened to “men”, “immigrant men” who pose as nothing but a threat to the state. By doing all of this the Trump Administration are working desperately in order to push a different narrative and motivation, and, in turn, justify their cruel decision to separate and then detain children.

This is not the only issue. On top of picking and choosing who deserves the identity of a “child”, the US Government seem to want to decide whether this is a human rights issue or an issue regarding the security of the nation.

By pushing the idea of threatening teenage boys, the Government have insisted on a sole motivation of protecting America, offering no protection and therefore no maintenance toward the keeping of human rights for these children. These concepts that the government creates regarding individuals like these, will eventually go on to materialise into social attitudes, where American citizens are fearful or hostile towards immigrants. Attitudes like these spark racist viewpoints and prejudice. Separating children into those deserving of protection and those who are not creates a mentality amongst society where people will begin to pick and choose who deserves which privileges and rights based on their age, gender and background, and occasion after occasion it is those teenage boys who are deemed to be capable “men” and therefore discriminated against.

Now, as hundreds more continue to march, protest and campaign against social and legal atrocities such as this, it is important to remember that we are fighting for all children suffering separation and detainment, regardless of age and gender, and then for all adults, no matter what their racial or religious backgrounds. Human rights activists consider all as deserving of the right to seek asylum and safety in a respectful and just manner, something the Trump Administration should perhaps evaluate once more.

Thanks for reading!

Aman