Article 16: A Child’s Right to Privacy

The shootings at Columbine high school shocked our nation. No one understood how two teenage boys could have plotted such a horrific scheme without any of the adults in their lives knowing what they were planning. In the future, it may not be so far fetched to think that a parent would have no clue about whether or not his child is involved in nefarious activities. Article 16 of the UNCRC treaty provides a child with the right to privacy, stating that:

1. No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation.
2. The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

In Japan, rulings on the treaty have shown that this means that e-mails, websites visited, and other forms of communication are also protected by privacy rights. If a parent doesn’t have the right to know about his child’s life, how is he supposed to set appropriate boundaries for him, and raise him to be a pillar of society, rather than a drain on society? Our nation works because of the family unit, not despite it. If we allow the UNCRC to tear the family to shreds, we will lose the nation that we now enjoy.

The idea that children should have privacy from their parents is absurd. Even adults don’t have complete privacy. For instance, privacy is not a guaranteed right at work. Any e-mails, correspondence, and in certain cases phone calls can be monitored without the employee knowing that they are being monitored. This is considered lawful because the company is paying for the communication services that their employees enjoy. Those services are to be used for work-related dialogue; therefore it is within the company’s authority to ensure that they are being used properly. In the same way, a child doesn’t pay for his own e-mail, phone bills, or computer access either. Why wouldn’t a parent have full control over how the e-mail service that he is paying for is used? If that parent doesn’t want his child viewing pornography, he has to have the right to check the history of the websites his child has been to, especially when he suspects that his child may be disobeying his rules. As long as a child is the parents’ responsibility, the parents have to be able to hold the child accountable, and ensure that the child is obeying the house rules. Otherwise, they become unwilling accomplices in the child’s schemes.

Another example of where adults lack the privacy outlined in the UNCRC is within the bond of marriage. When two people join their lives and become a part of each other they share their struggles as well as their victories with their spouse. There is no privacy in marriage, and there isn’t meant to be. Privacy within the family is unnatural. The deep communion we experience within our families is what causes us to grow. Children need this openness within the family unit.

Could you imagine your spouse suing you because you looked at his e-mail account, and found something that you needed to confront him with? You’ve found that you had a right to be suspicious, and suddenly it is your behavior that is being investigated by authorities! Or imagine him suing you because you were looking for something mundane, and thought it might be in his study—and he caught you looking through his things? And if he did sue you, what would that do to your relationship? How do you rebuild after airing your grievances in court? The relationship between a child and a parent is even more important because the parent is expected to teach the child right from wrong. Spouses can be replaced, parents cannot. When the parent/child relationship is broken, it has tragic consequences. Parents must have the ultimate authority over their children.

How can you raise your child if you will be sued for investigating what your child is doing with the Internet service that you pay for? How can you raise your child, if you fear being sued for checking through the chest of drawers that you provided him with? Schools are allowed to lock students down in their classrooms and bring in drug-sniffing dogs to search through students’ lockers for drugs. The legal right behind this lies in the fact that the school lockers are school property, not the student’s property, so schools have the right to search the lockers. If a government institution has this right, why wouldn’t parents have the right to search a room in their own home?

Just as a spouse of a recovered alcoholic will always be on the lookout for signs of a relapse, a parent who has found that his child is involved in an addiction is going to need to monitor that child more closely. The UNCRC takes away the right of the parent to be suspicious—even after trust is broken! If we strip authority figures of their authority, who are the children held accountable to?
The family is the one place where children know that they are accepted, no matter what. Even if my son uses drugs, or falls into some other temptation that our family stands against, I will always love my son. I have yet to meet a parent who cares about his child who would search a room or nose through e-mail just to be cruel. Parents who do these things do them because something in their child’s behavior has them worried. It is parents who want the best for their children who have rules and boundaries and take the time to enforce those rules. And it is these parents that the UNCRC targets. The mom who goes out to bars a few nights a week and leaves her kids to do what they want cares more about her own pleasure than her children. In this case, it is the negligent parents who are left unmolested by the government. How is that supposed to help children?

Privacy doesn’t help a child; instead it allows walls to be built between the child and concerned parents. Instead of an environment of openness and growth, the home becomes an environment of deceit and locked doors. The child is free to embrace whatever he wants to embrace, whether it is good for him or not. Children are children because they are not old enough to make wise decisions without guidance from adults. While parents can’t stop every misstep their children will make, they can certainly help counsel their children through some of it. We cannot allow our homes to become battlegrounds. The home needs to be the place where sin is dealt with before the disease continues to grow and becomes too big to be nipped in the bud.

Once again the UNCRC is a direct assault on the family unit. If the lawmakers in Washington, D.C. ratify this treaty, when another school massacre occurs, will those lawmakers take responsibility for the tragedy? Will they be the ones mourning their sons and daughters? No. The government won’t take responsibility, instead they’ll point at the parents who were handcuffed by the UNCRC and say that they should have known something was wrong with their child—if they were good parents. How can we safeguard our children if the laws of the land forbid us from it?

Please consider signing the petition at the Parental Rights website. Tell other concerned parents about the petition as well. The treaty is a Trojan horse. It looks like it safeguards children, when it really strips them of their true protection—their parents. Without a strong family unit raising moral individuals, our society will not be able to function. Our freedoms are at stake.