Submitted by crinadmin on
In Arabic David Maidment, 69, is Children’s Rights Advisor, Amnesty International UK, Co-Chair of the Consortium for Street Children and Founder and Chairman of the Railway Children. David became involved in children’s rights at the age of 52, following 36 years as a railway manager. As head of safety policy for British Rail, he found his calling following a traumatic encounter with a young girl at a railway station in Bombay, India. The girl was whipping herself to draw attention to the fact she was begging. David was so upset, he soon became involved with Amnesty International. If I could give child rights advocates on piece of advice, it would be to lobby internally within governments. Find the appropriate champion for child rights within governments as it is harder to effect change outside. Which issue in child rights merits more attention? It’s a hard question – you almost don’t know where to start. My particular issue is the plight of street children, which is a growing problem across the world. In particular, HIV and conflict in Africa, and the fall of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe have fuelled the problem. My concern is that the issue is not getting enough attention. I suppose the best achievement in my career would be the founding of the Railway Children, which has grown into an organisation that has an income of about £2 million at year and operates in nine countries. The best thing about the CRC is that it exists and has been ratified by 191 of the 193 UN Member States, so it is widely accepted. The worst is that is that it is so little implemented. It’s obviously made a big impact as it constantly goads governments into making changes, and the fact they have to submit reports puts child rights on the agenda. The problem is that the countries with the worst rights records do the least to implement. There are many child rights organisations doing good work, but one that has caught my eye is SPARC in Pakistan, which seems to be doing courageous work in very difficult circumstances. If I wasn’t working in child rights, I would be…enjoying my retirement. The best thing about my job is when I get to go to projects and meet the staff and the see the work they are doing and the enthusiasm they have. So many of the children have got so much guts to decide to change their situation by going onto the streets. The worst thing is to see how much there is to be done, and that there is never enough money to do all we want to do. It’s difficult to sit in funding meetings having to decide between projects when you want to do them all. If I was not answering these questions, I would be checking up on my huge backlog of emails! My perfect job in child rights? I’m pretty privileged to be doing what I do now, as I find I so rewarding. If I had to choose, and I had the background, I would be working on projects on the ground. But with my business and lobbying experience, it is better to use my background doing what I am doing now. If I were to sum up children’s rights in one word, it would be fairness.