'Children Problems' Atop Agenda of 16th IUAES

"Children Problems" is on the top agenda on the fourth day of the "16th World Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences" Thursday.

Deepak Kumar Behera, a professor from India and chairman of Commission on the Anthropology of Children, Youth and Childhood, delivered a speech titled "Childhood in Changing Context".

Behera believed that childhood is an important period for cultural construction. Schools and parents should not have too many expectations and demands for children. It is necessary to fully respect and safeguard the rightful interests of children and the gender of children should not be overlooked.

The distance between children and adults is narrowing down and the adults' authority is weakening. The UN Children's Convention also ignored the gender of children, and the "Children's Culture Center" concept has not been set up, said Behera.

Behera said schools gave children too many demands and too rigid management, and separated children from the society. Parents rarely took care of children, which is detrimental to the children's growth.

Soundbite: Jiang Nan, Chinese scholar "His research is to study children from the anthropological angle, instead of the previous angles purely from psychology, physiology and biology research. This gives us a new perspective to look at children which has inspired us a lot."

The seminar has attracted nearly 100 experts who are concerned about the children's problems. After the seminar, they also had communications on the children's problems from angles of anthropology, biology, physiology and sociology.

(Xinhua News Agency July 31, 2009)