Ms Benazir Bhutto’s Speech
At Rashid Centre Humanitarian Awards Ceremony – Dubai
June 6, 2005
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a special privilege to join you this evening for the Rashid Paediatric Centre’s Humanitarian Award function.
We gather tonight on the occasion of the Rashid Centre’s Humanitarian Award to late Prime Minister Rafiq Harriri of Lebanon.
In anguish we recall Prime Minister Hariri’s death in a terrible act of terrorism this February, an act of terror that claimed ten other lives.
Prime Minister Harriri was a transformational figure in life and in death. He transformed Lebanon with post war reconstruction work. He rebuilt his country and his record will live on in history as a monument to his memory. His tragic death galvanised the world community leading to a new political equation.
I recall my meetings with Prime Minister Harriri. He was a leader of courage and compassion who believed in the Islamic values of consensus.
Tonight the Rashid Centre pays tribute to Lebanon’s leader who was committed to humanitarian causes.
The Rashid Paediatric Therapy Centre itself invites admiration for its selfless devotion to the most vulnerable segment of our society, young disabled children.
As I speak to you now, a child will be born.
Irrespective of where that child is born, in which continent, in which country or in which home, a loving Mother will love and feed that child praying for its future.
The life of a child born in a war torn zone will be so much different to that of one born in peace.
The life of a child born in poverty will be different to the one born to an affluent home.
In parts of the world, little children born in innocence are made child soldiers, in other parts forced to work in the labour force and yet others forced into prostitution.
One of the saddest stories I read was of a Mother forced to sell her eldest daughter to feed her ten remaining children. One can imagine the powerlessness and desperation of a Mother forced to sell a most beloved child.
None of us can be in peace with our own selves so long as innocent children continue to suffer, suffer poverty, cruelty, violence.
We explore the darkest portions of space and the deepest depths of the ocean. Humanity has made incredible leaps forward. Even as we grow in technological knowledge and information passes through the information highway in the blink of an eye, the sad reality of suffering children is a reminder of challenges yet unmet.
Children are victims, both as casualties and as survivors of conflict although they have little choice in either.
According to UNICEF’s 1996 report between 1945 and 1992, there were 149 major wars, killing 23 million people. The number of war deaths in this period was double the deaths in 19th century and seven times greater than in 18th century.
Children in the aftermath of war or natural disaster, with or without parents, often go through ordeals in refugee camps, while fleeing for shelter, food or protection.
International aid agencies like UNICEF and Save the children fund, reach out to the world’s poorest and most deprived children. Yet they can resolve only part of the problem. In many poverty stricken areas of the world, nation states still spend too little on social services and too much of their meagre resources on procurement of weapons and military budgets. So long as they do that, children will continue to suffer in large numbers.
It is important to note that some of yesterdays’ children are today’s recruits in suicide bombings. Although there can be no justification of terrorism, the question we need to ask is: What did the last generation do that made some of this generation perpetuate violence?
History is continuous, and often cyclical. The mistakes of parents or past generations, reflect into children, thereby marking our present. Children signify our future. The experience of today will shape the decisions our children take tomorrow.
No international covenants will change the world, unless there is active discouragement by parents of violence and violent means of change. However the eventual responsibility lies with nation states – to build peaceful conditions and more than that, to evolve strong legal instruments that prevent child abuse.
Often, when talking about children, we adults, treat them as a thing apart – as if they are another being, or another category, forgetting that once we were children, who now ensure our own continuity through our children.
If we could remember what happened to us during our individual childhoods that shaped our individual personalities, we could remember that today is yesterday’s future, shaped by the experiences we went through as children.
If we own other people’s children, as if they were ours, we can build a tomorrow where the spectre of sectarian, ethnic and terrorist violence recedes.
For all of us who care for children and for the common bond of humanity that links us, we dedicate ourselves to building a world where each little child that is born can hope to live without dying through infant mortality, can hope to gain an education, find a home and a career and build a family and community.
As a Mother, I feel strongly about the rights of children. As Prime Minister I was asked to Co Chair the World Summit on children. I was astounded to find that one of nine children born with the crippling disease polio was from Pakistan. I worked hard with the people of my country to eliminate polio, to iodise salt, to prevent child labour and to build schools to give our children opportunity and a better future than the dark yesterdays they had known.
Special attention was given to young girls for ensuring that our future Mothers were literate. I believe the first and best teacher is the
Mother.
For me, the little child, even when unborn, is our precious wealth and the strength of our coming generations.
In a world where weapons and war too often define us, it is important that we leave tonight’s function learning from the Rashid Centre to help children who are the true beneficiaries of the efforts for a better world.
As I spoke to you tonight, many Mother’s gave birth to children across the world. I wonder: how many will see their children survive infancy.
I do know that the number of those children who survive is the true test of our direction and goals as a world community.
Ad while I cannot say how many children died while I spoke to you tonight, I can say that while such basic violation of the children’s
rights continues, none of us can be truly content, no matter how privileged our life styles.
I leave you tonight with the words of a poem that held particular meaning for me:
If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn. If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns confidence.
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, he learns to find love in the world.