Who speaks for the child not yet conceived?

Sermon     29.9.13 (Boynton) & 1.10.13 (Harvesters)

I make no apology for revisiting a topic about which I have spoken on previous occasions, namely the way in which we deal with children in this country of ours.  I do so because several pieces of news have come to my attention recently and they seem to me to be inter-related.

For example, it is reported that there has been a huge surge in the number of women going to work in the UK and this includes a majority who are mothers.  In fact, over 70% of working mothers have dependent children.  This coincides with a situation where there are now more single mothers rearing children than ever before. 

That is, I hasten to add, not a case of my grinding an axe on the subject of single mothers but simply noting that a child has the right under the convention on the Rights of the child, to which the UK is in signatory, to be brought up by both its parents.  That is the responsibility of both parents to their child.

There is then the guidance issued by the Government Agency whose acronym is NICE (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) which has issued primary schools with guidance addressed to ‘professionals’ and ‘heads’ (note not teachers) on how to ensure that children are taught social and learning skills.  It also asks them to identify parents who need help with being parents! (One wonders how much time must be taken up with this and how many boxes will have to be ticked accordingly.

Finally my attention was attracted to a report about an Islamic publicly-funded Faith School in Derby and its dress code.  There were two aspects to this code which I found interesting.  One was the requirement for all female staff, regardless of their personal beliefs, to wear head scarves and prohibiting them from giving any indication of a faith other than Islam, that is to say for example ‘not to wear crosses.’  Meanwhile another aspect of the code requires that all girls aged 6 years and over should wear the burkah.

The first requirement has already led to a female teacher being bullied into resignation by male members of staff.  It should be born in mind that the code was not introduced until AFTER the term had started.  But it is the requirement that girls must wear a burkah that worries me for two reasons.

One is the re-emergence of rickets in this country especially within the Asian community and it is happening, evidence suggests, because of the prevention of sunlight reaching the skin due to this style of dress.  There is then, of course, the side issue of girls having no swimming lessons because males tell them that the Islamic requirement for modesty prevents it.

I shall confine myself to suggesting that males who oppress females by presuming to dictate attire because otherwise they, the men that is, might become ‘inflamed’ as they call it, should grow up, get a life and learn some self-control.  As to the wearing of the burkah itself, the problem it deems to me is this: when a dress style coming from one very narrow strict, Wahhabist strand of Islam of comparatively recent origin seeks to impose itself on every part of Islam we all inherit a problem.  Whether it be the young girls whose whole lives may be impaired by illness or the teacher bullied out of her job by zealous male fellow teachers for not wearing a headscarf this is not the way we do things in England – is it?

Even though we may no longer have many Christians in our midst, nevertheless we still tend to think that loving our neighbour means at the very least not forcing him or her to comply with our way of doing things just because we say so, but Wahhabism does not seem to agree with this.  When our approach also carries the real danger of harming people for life then something has clearly gone wrong.

Furthermore this conduct could be argued to run completely contrary to the convention on the Rights of the Child to which we are signatories.  How does the burkah seem to tie-in with the right of the child to be as healthy as she can? Furthermore how can children be equal when one can be taught to swim at school and another can’t?

If parents have children knowing from the outset that they will not be able to care for them as they should, how does that square with giving them the most basic of children’s rights, namely the right to a safe secure home with both parents?  And when Government approved Agencies appear to acknowledge the shortfall in care and good parenting by suggesting teachers make up the deficit, again there is clearly a major problem.

‘Whatsoever you do to one of these little ones you do it even unto me,’ to quote Jesus.  The ‘I must have it all and my rights trump everyone else’s approach, seems to me to sell children short in too many cases, quite apart from its sheer downright egotism.  If you agree with any of this, pray certainly, but also write to your MP.

Tony Kidd

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