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The fight against children's violence is yet to be solved

Children are seen as empty and irrational beings, so "violence" has been normalized as a disciplinary method

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Silvia Federici, academic and feminist, said that childhood education had not taken a significant place today, and that is where the feminist struggle should also be focused.

Federici mentioned that violence against children is normalized, creating a severe problem because they are usually seen as irrational individuals, which must be disciplined through "violence." An act that is justified as "education," she says for the magazine of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

"Childhood has been represented in capitalism as a relatively degraded state of life because children are irrational, those who are not yet productive. Although capitalism deals with childhood thinking, they are future workers, and so both must be disciplined, "Silvia Federici.

According to the United Nations in Mexico, two children die daily under the age of 14.

The most worrying issue for the academic is that as a society, we don't realize how humiliating and traumatizing it can be for children to be attacked and abused by any family member, this leaves traces later on.

"The women's movement must set the fight against violence against minors as part of its fundamental program, and also the school," Federici said.

The school as an ally to eliminate violence

Educational institutions must rethink their academic programs, since these are thought from above, to satisfy the labor market, Federici said, they should be built from the needs of children.

Federici emphasizes that it is often thought that children are empty individuals, and adults should teach them how to fill their lives, the artistic sense of children is not taken advantage of. Regarding gender differences, conceptions must also be taught. "You have to learn that feminine and masculine are social constructions as well. So I think it is a central and strategic terrain for any movement," Federici said. The social construction of being a man and a woman also starts from home, because it is where the sexual division of labor begins. In many places, for example, the gender division is done in the first years of life: it is the girl who does the domestic work. The boy has greater freedom; he can play and share with others. From the moment they are born, girls are the ones who take care of the house. This division starts very, very soon. According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), at least 6 out of 10 girls, boys, and adolescents aged 1 to 14 years experienced some violent method of discipline, and 1 out of two boys, girls, and adolescents suffered psychological aggressions, worldwide. The effect of childhood education is central. As adults, you must unlearn "violence" as a disciplinary method because from there; you begin to cement part of the patriarchal system, where violence is allowed.