Download the Speeches of all Hon'ble Chief Justices & Judges in ...

Hon’ble Dr. Justice Armando BermeoCastillo, Chairman, First Labour & SocialCourt, Supreme Court of Ecuador receivingthe Conference MementoIn this sense, the need arises to review the application of the Convention on the Rights ofthe Child, in a parallel action with the application of the Convention for the elimination ofall forms of discrimination against the woman, both part of the international legislationsystem, jointly with other safeguard instruments as the United Nations Charter, theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant of Civil and PoliticalRights, International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the 2000Manifest, and require, again, from the international community the full implementation ofchildren rights with concrete actions as well as long term purposes.Likewise, the fight for the complete eradication of recurrent problems as poverty, in allits dimensions, all manifestation of racial, religious, cultural and gender discrimination,because of physical or mental challenges or because of diseases as AIDS; and, each and every form of violence andexploitation against the exercise of the rights of the human being.This aspects shall be treated, in every case in a special way, promoting not only the protection of children and adolescentsbut of the family in an integral form, taking into consideration education, physical and psychological health of the individualsconforming it as well as total access of information about programmes aimed to create areas of improvement and care tochildren in situation of vulnerability; and, the adoption of legislative measures and law administration practices that overseethe well-being of children within their family, education and social realities.To talk about the world context, do not escape of the regional and even national reflection on the critical situations generatedby the impoverished economies of the majority of developing countries, situations driving progressive and massive migratoryprocesses that have, as principal human consequence, family fragmentation; and, in many cases, partial and total abandonmentof children and adolescents. In Ecuador, the rising migration, have as an implicit consequence, increased the cases ofabandoned children and proliferation of the social phenomenon of “juvenile gangs”, at the margin of the law.To think about childhood, is to think about the family; and to think about the family, is to think about the community andthinking about the community leads to think about the universal space of cultural development where each and every nationshare a common ideal of peace, harmony and non-violence.International relations, in the last fifty years, have been focused in the premise of “peace” being “not war” translating thispremise into policies of deterrence that have not approached the true problems of international instability; therefore, eventhough the danger of a new total war has been avoided, it has been impossible to eliminate the true causes of violence.Deterrence policies are not only insufficient but obsolete and inadequate as to face problems like poverty, external debt,terrorism, abandonment of vulnerable nations that are the sources and true menaces for the international order as well associal peace.Nevertheless, there are voices that refuse to be silenced and silences that want to leave its prison and the gag; voices that farfrom immediate and short range solutions, propose ones that feed hope, call to conscience and urge to the will and freedomto work for the construction of a world of unity and peace, with the defiant idea of a world united by PEACE, that createsconditions for the development of the complete dignity of the human being.To humanize, in the actual world context, is an uneasy task; but to educate in values is a humanizing and universal task; is notonly the capability of transmitting knowledge but the capability of achieving that such knowledge be assumed and reflectedin our own behaviour, attitudes and daily living; educate for peace is to participate of a new ethical, juridical and social orderthat pledge us to put in practice the universal principles of the peace culture, non violence and harmony, in such a way thatpromote peaceful interaction, social justice and complete democratic participation starting from the children, as they are thepresent and future of HUMANITY.--46--