Is the Spanish Government going to get out of the donkey or is it afraid?
- Since the first day of confinement, many professionals committed and concerned with children have talked about the extreme measure that the Spanish Government has imposed on children.
This Tuesday, after more than a month of strict confinement of children, the government has made public, through El País, its decision to ask for the opinion of "experts". Thus, the Spanish Association of Pediatrics will create one or more committees to address the issue. This professional association, unfortunately and surprisingly, throughout this time has not made any statements or communiqués about the draconian confinement of healthy or sick children. And when they have finally done so, the president of the association, María José Mellado, said: "As long as the health authority keeps the lockdown, children and young people have to comply with it as the rest of the population," he added. A curious statement when we consider that children are the only category of population that has not been able to leave for a moment since the beginning of the crisis.
Although pediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists and educators have much to say about the negative consequences of this confinement, and how to prevent them, what now seems urgent is not precisely the creation of committees made up of ingenious researchers to produce a report that needs weeks. We have known, since the late 1950s, that severe confinement has harmful consequences for the health and physical and mental integrity of anyone other than a robot, especially in terms of vulnerable groups, and children are. Dozens of previous studies have analyzed the reaction of children and adults to stressful confinement situations.
In addition, with a little respect and empathy, it is enough to look and listen to the children, and soon we will realize the negative consequences for their health and development of not letting them play, run, enjoy the outdoors and nature or socialize with their peers. Among these consequences are obesity, sleep disorders, irritability, anxiety, prolonged exposure to screens or with parents who are angry or stressed.
It is noteworthy that on the 31st day of its confinement, awareness of its harmful effects has begun. We hope that the well-being of children will be the source of their concerns and not electoral calculations.
In any case, only health specialists cannot decide on this issue, because we are talking about rights recognised in national and international law. They are rights that protect the vital needs of children, whose intensity and satisfaction can be decided by them alone, with the support of their families. No expert, however wise, can know exactly what these deficiencies are, nor know how long each child can be confined or suffer the harmful consequences of confinement. As professionals, our ethical responsibility is to be brave and to transfer what we know to government and society.
That is why, since 16 March, some of us have sent signals to the Spanish Government through our blogs and social networks. We know that they are read to measure public opinion.
Day by day, our voices come together. This citizen movement has gathered around 50,000 firms in the network, including 350 professionals in the field of rights, health, education, sociology or anthropology. On 6 and 7 April we sent a letter on behalf of all of us to the President of the Spanish Government and the Minister of Health. Surprisingly, we have received no answer. The members of the Government appear to be willing to listen only to their experts, whose views focus solely on the famous curve and the Ro coefficient. Other dimensions of childhood and its difficulties, other opinions and recommendations, such as the recommendations of the WHO and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which encourages creative solutions that allow it to leave at least once a day, respecting the safety distance and supervising it properly.
It is noteworthy that on the thirty-first day of confinement they realized its grave consequences. We hope that the well-being of children will be the source of their concerns, not the electoral calculations or the fear of the pressures of the savage and unsupportive political opposition. In the case of the right, it is not certain that children care very much. We hope that both of them will not fall into the use of childhood as a political weapon; in judicial processes of conflict separation, such as the emotional blackmail that some couples make to their sons and daughters. That would be a serious mistake. That experience and research serve at least the next time to reflect very well before punishing the dead.
