In an unprecedented move, dozens of undocumented youth marched 250 miles and shut down the street in front of the US Capitol last week to demonstrate against the expiration of the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on March 5. Their message is simple: Trump and Congress, quit playing games with our lives.
This follows two weeks of uprisings by students demanding gun control after 17 students were killed in a mass shooting on Valentine’s Day in Parkland, Florida. Led by Parkland students themselves, the youth have spoken on every major television network, met with local and federal legislators, and organised a nation-wide school walk out to the US Capitol. “We are still, of course, grieving,” says Delany Tarr, a 17-year-old student who survived the shooting, “but ultimately, we are not making this a partisan issue. We are making this a life-or-death issue. We have nothing to lose. The only thing we have to gain at this point is our safety.”
All over the world, children are rising up against the violence against them, violence which seems to be on the rise. From South Sudan to Yemen, Syria and Nigeria, children are more and more bearing the brunt of violence and conflict. UNICEF’s Director of Emergency, Manuel Fontaine, stated that children “are being targeted and exposed to attacks and brutal violence in their homes, schools and playgrounds. As these attacks continue, we cannot become numb. Such brutality cannot be the new normal.”
“At least in heaven there’s food,” cried the mother in a video shot in a hospital in Eastern Ghouta, Syria, which sustained five days of bombing and more than 1,000 people were killed. Her son was critically injured, and the doctor bent over crying over the hopelessness of the situation. “I’m waiting for him to die,” she sobbed. Nearly six million children in Syria require humanitarian assistance. In Yemen, at least 5,000 children have lost their lives already, a country where one child is infected with cholera every 35 seconds. In Nigeria, once again, another one hundred girls were kidnapped while attending school last week. The world is a dangerous, unsettling place to be a child, but something different seems to be happening. These children are using their voices to stand up against the senseless violence. And they aren’t backing down.
Fifteen year-old Muhammed Najem’s school and playground were bombed in east Ghouta, Syria this month. His father was killed in a shelling. His haunting videos are gaining international attention as he risks his life filming footage of the daily toll on children and families. “I'm like any kid in al-Ghouta,” he writes in a captioned photo of himself working. “Instead of going to school, I go to buy some wood for my mother to cook our lunch. I hope the war ends and we can all go back to school.”
In the US, schools have had to run mandatory Shooter Preparedness Drill, as required by the district. “But why would someone want to kill kids?” asks my seven-year-old son. Even with a Master’s degree in counselling, I am at a loss of words. “But there’s no war here mommy. Why do people buy guns you would use in a war?” By the time I’ve even begun thinking of how to breach the topic of the $135 million-dollar gun lobby and its influence over politicians, he has moved on to finding worms and folding his homework into a paper airplane. Things kids should be concerned about.
Across the world in Syria, Bana Alabed has become the human face of the siege in Aleppo when she began a Twitter feed that went viral last year. “The world is watching. The world doesn't do anything," she said to CNN. “A lot died and no one helped them.” She, too, is seven.
“They’re freedom fighters,” said Bassan Al-Tamimi from the occupied West Bank, the father of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi, who sits in jail for slapping an Israeli soldier which was captured on video. She stated the slap was in protest after her cousin was shot in the face by soldiers at close range with a rubber bullet. She is now the new face of resistance in Palestine and for many around the world. She is another child who has spent her life facing injustice. Israeli forces arrested her in a night raid and she has been charged. Many believe her punishment is far too harsh for a child.
Not all agree.
“They’re arrogant,” tweeted Marco Rubio, Florida State Republican Senator who was confronted on national television by Parkland shooting survivors regarding his record of accepting millions from the National Rifle Association (NRA). While the majority of the country applauds the children’s effort, conservative media outlets launched a viscous smear campaign against them. “How interesting to hear students who can’t support themselves for one day giving us lectures about American social policy,” tweeted conservative author Dinesh D’Souza. Some of these youth are reportedly receiving death threats.
“If all our government and President can do is send thoughts and prayers,” said 17-year old Parkland survivor Emma Gonzalez, who now has over 1 million followers on Twitter, “then it’s time for victims to be the change that we need to see. We certainly do not understand why it should be harder to make plans with friends on weekends than to buy an automatic or semi-automatic weapon.”
No country is spared from the footage of violence in the world against children; none of us are spared from the possibility it could happen to us. Are we letting our children down? Kids don’t care about politics, or economics or votes or power. They want to go to school and play outdoors with their friends and look for worms. Let’s join them in their fight to have these rights. What on earth is more important and worth fighting for?