Hunt down the baddies and punish them!

I promised I wouldn’t rant so this is an ‘observation’ that I will endeavour to learn from.  Jonathan went to the launch yesterday of Child Slavery Now – a publication outlining child slavery across the world – as he had written a chapter on child domestic work.  However, the launch was dominated by debate on the trafficking of children to the UK and the existence of complex criminal networks of traffickers.

Jonathan came back from the event frustrated that the focus was on the UK rather than the rest of the world and we discussed the seemingly inexhaustible need to identify a ‘baddy’ to tackle child slavery.  From both mine and Jonathan’s experience the ‘baddy’ is invariably poverty. Or, more accurately, there are a number of baddies that tend to be structural issues such as gender inequality or societal attitudes towards children that can’t be hunted down by a group of burly police officers and punished.

In the near future Children Unite will develop an advocacy campaign of it’s own on child domestic work and, as campaigning is my background, I’m impatient to set it up. Everyone knows that the simplest ideas tend to be the best.  However, I’m conscious of the need to develop a campaign that is not simply ‘raising awareness’ about child domestic work but equally is not just pointing the finger at a ‘baddy’ and saying “punish him”.  Additionally, as Children Unite is an international organisation, any campaign we run will need to be relevant across the globe.

I think I need to remind myself of what a good campaign is…the word is used to mean all sorts of things.  So, without googling it, I reckon that a good advocacy campaign gives ‘normal’ people an opportunity to change the bigger picture.  Of course it has to be well researched, targeted and monitored etc.  But it also has to be engaging and, essentially a positive experience for people....they are, after all, changing the bigger picture for the better.  I feel like I’m rambling now so I’ll stop…before I prove how little I actually know about advocacy campaigns.

This is a bit of a random way to end my post but I find it terribly depressing when people have no hope, when people aren't striving for something better.  A good advocacy campaign locks into that nugget of 'hope' within us all that things can be better.  And reassures us that together we are stronger and can make a difference. 

So, anyone got any ideas!?