UN: International Year of Youth

Debate between Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead and Lord Geddes

Monday 4th April 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, for initiating this debate and for calling, as other noble Lords have done, for greater emphasis and a stronger focus on measures intended substantially to increase the participation and the quality of life of young people. The actions and the desired outcomes we have discussed here today, as noble Lords have shown, make absolute and infinite sense.

Young people have potentially a huge contribution to make because of their experience and understanding, which they can add to global efforts to meet the millennium development goals and to fight against inequality and discrimination. There has, quite rightly, been substantial investment in young children, especially those under five. However, that does not mean that there is any justification for giving insufficient attention to the crucial second decade of life, which of course is the focus of the UN International Year of Youth.

Youths continue to be subsumed under the category of children but are too often overlooked in the programming and resources available; it is far more likely that that programming and those resources will be directed to younger children. It means that young people’s contributions are overlooked and neglected. As many noble Lords will know, many of these young people are heads of households, often caring for young siblings, fetching water and preparing food, yet they have absolutely no authority within their community and are excluded from all the decision-making. We now risk jeopardising the gains in early and middle childhood that have been made since 1990 and seeing a deterioration in those advances.

I am reminded of the story of a young woman speaking at a recent UN meeting. She asked the delegates, “How old will you be in 2050?”. The chair of the committee admitted that he would be 110 and therefore unlikely to see the results of our failure to act. The fact is that the kind of world in which that young woman lives will depend both on those who inherit it and on those who bequeath it to them. Noble Lords have talked about young people being our future. I would say that young people are our present too, and it is very important that we remember that.

It has certainly been my experience that all too often young people are not consulted, are not taken seriously and are not given a voice, when the parameters of rights and responsibilities are clearly agreed under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Tackling the challenges faced by young women is imperative at this time, as many noble Lords have said.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Geddes)]

With many apologies to the noble Baroness, a Division has now been called in the Chamber. The Grand Committee stands adjourned until 5.26 pm.