Leave your kids at home, protesters told

Sappasit Khumprapan, a member of the National Child Protection Committee, said the action of parents taking children to protests - knowing there was a risk of violence - was inappropriate and violated the young people's rights, according to the Child Protection Act 2003. He expressed concern for children under 15, who could be manipulated easily or used by adults, because they could not decide for themselves and had no choice but to remain with their parents .

Sappasit, also Centre for the Protection of Children's Rights Foundation director, said demonstrators taking kids could be divided into two groups - those unable to find babysitters, and those with no intention of violating the children's rights but who naively took them to an inappropriate or risky environment.

He urged demonstrators not to take small children to the protests. If they do attend, they should be taken home before dusk because protest crackdowns usually take place at night or at pre-dawn.

Montri Sintawichai, chairman of the Child Protection Foundation, expressed concern children might absorb the aggressive words or actions seen at protests and act them out later. He suggested the yellow-shirt People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) or the red-shirt pro-government protesters, should set up day care groups with adults tag-teaming to take care of the kids, instead of putting the youngsters at risk.

Following the state of emergency and rumours police would disperse protesters at the Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports, UNICEF expressed concern for children who went to these demonstrations with their parents. It urged the Thai government and PAD to ensure children's safety and well being.

Mental Health Department chief Dr Chatree Bancheun yesterday expressed concerns over the protester children's mental health. He said they might be affected in a long term by the stress, rude remarks and violent incidents with many injuries and therefore become depressed and aggressive.

Citing a study on the Southern Unrest impacts on children's mental health, he said that children continuously living with violent situation would get used to violence, become depressed and create a selfprotecting mechanism of aggression and hatefulness. He also dismissed some parents' claim that the children could learn about democracy that small children especially those aged 35 were too young, had no judgement on this subject and were stressful more easily than adults.