4 - Heard but Unable to Speak

Summary

Violence and time are elements shaping the lives of children. For children, time is something that to a large part is placed in the future, while to adults, it is placed in the past; still, it is within this time that violence directed toward children occurs because they are children, often with the purpose of shaping their personhood and controlling them. To be able to speak freely about how time and violence socially construct the self-identity as a child is an important act of resistance against the use of violence constructing childhood but also an important form of protection. To fight violence, the child rights discourse must move beyond the child’s rights to be heard to also take seriously the right to freedom of speech.