“It is a very serious situation. The climate crisis is worsening and the world is not responding in the necessary way. That's why I get involved, because now it's my responsibility as a mother," testifies Rachel, a member of Mothers' Rebellion, a movement of grandmothers, mothers and caregivers that mobilizes against global warming because they fear for the future. of childhood; specifically, because of the threat it poses to their human rights.
Mothers' Rebellion has a presence in 26 countries (in all components) and its form of protest is the same in all of them. The activists hold peaceful circles and remain seated with protest signs, on which messages can be read such as “Wanting is acting” or simply a “stop” followed by the name of their children. They do it for them.
“We want to be able to look our children in the eyes and tell them that we really do everything we can; “We will not abandon the fight for a sustainable present and future for current and future generations,” the organization expresses in a statement of objectives, which was born in parallel in the United States and Sweden in 2022.
Its members are mainly women, although there are also some men (caregivers and allies). The common factor of all the people who participate is the strong emotional component in their demands. “We turn our pain and frustration over the lack of a transformative political response into action,” the organization proclaims. All of them also feel a strong sense of duty, which came to them especially after motherhood and fatherhood.
“Being a mother gives you a very strong sense of responsibility. Before, I was already worried about climate change; but now, I must act because I owe it to my own children,” says Federica, a member of Mothers' Rebellion and mother of a three-year-old boy.
Federica has a doctorate in Astrophysics and jokes that, from the point of view of this scientific area, the planet will remain in the same place long after humanity is gone. What she worries about is the impact that climate change will have on him and us. “Emotionally, it gives me real anxiety to think about what will happen to our children and the planet in general,” adds Federica.
In this sense, Federica says that protest circles help her. “I feel supported. There, you know that you are not alone; that there are other people who have the same doubts as you; who has initiative and who is interested in fighting in some way,” she confesses.
Something similar happened to Rachel; She was the one who organized the first protest circle that Mothers' Rebellion did in Barcelona. Becoming her mother changed the way we measured her future and gave her a new sense of urgency.
“I have a two-year-old girl. Now, when I read data about the evolution of the climate crisis, I think that when she finishes primary school we will have already passed the point of no return, unless we make important changes,” she explains.
Rachel is a psychologist by profession and describes that at many times she has felt alone, even desperate, given the seriousness of the situation. “Acting is my responsibility as a mother,” she reaffirms.
What helped her, in addition to the circles, was also focusing her career on climate change. She is dedicated to the investigation of this event from a psychological point of view and offers support for anxieties like Federica's.
Both emphasize that, although for them the main emotional motivation is their own children, they act for the future of boys and girls around the world. The synthesis of this global vision of the problem is found in Beibei, another member of Mothers' Rebellion. “I do it for my four-year-old son, but also for all the sons and daughters of the world,” she defends.
For her, the trigger that led her to demonstrate was a visit to a planetarium a few weeks ago. “They showed us all the planets, and my son, after seeing them all, told me that the most beautiful one is ours. At that moment my heart hurt, because for all I know, the planet as we know it may not last long,” Beibei relates.
She worked as a journalist for a time in China, after finishing her university studies. “I traveled around the country quite a bit in the 2000s, and what I saw was a lot of environmental destruction. I have seen the cost of the development of the economy without limits, and it is something that I cannot forget,” the woman summarizes.
In the following years, he moved to Europe and focused his work on the environmental field, but at a certain point he felt that it was not enough to work on the climate crisis, but that his action had to go further. “We need more conversations, more social movements… That's why I put myself on the street now, even though I never would have done it before,” summarizes Beibei.
The ultimate objective of all these actions is to respect the rights of new generations in the face of the worsening climate crisis. Beyond the personal motivations of each of these women, the Committee on the Rights of the Child (UN consultative body) ratified last August in a report the threat that climate change poses to the fundamental human rights of the childhood.
In this document, the Committee explains how this crisis is related to the rights established in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and ruled, for the first time, the right of the youngest children to a “clean, healthy and sustainable".
The Committee includes a total of thirteen potentially threatened children's rights, among which are the right to non-discrimination; the right to life, survival and development; and the right to health.
For its part, UNICEF (the United Nations Children's agency) published its historic report on the Children's Climate Risk Index in 2021, under the title The climate crisis is a crisis for children's rights.
This found that almost all boys and girls are already exposed to at least one serious danger, shock or climatic and environmental stress. Furthermore, almost half of them (1 billion) live in countries with an extremely high level of risk from the climate crisis.
The data in the report was updated by UNICEF last November 2023, with the focus on access to water, due to its fundamental nature. In 2022, 470 million children faced high or extremely high drought risk.
“Climate change threatens the life, health and well-being of children. They are the most vulnerable to its effects, and those who live in low-income communities are at especially high risk of suffering the damage derived from this phenomenon,” argues UNICEF, an entity that calls for children to be considered a priority in the response. world to the climate crisis.
