We live amid (reports of) orchestrated, organized violence against children – bombs dropping on schools in Gaza, Iran, Sudan; children kidnapped by masked agents of the State across the United States; children strip-searched in prisons across the world; and so much more performed in the name of “national security”. These all garner and deserve whatever attention they get … but we must remember, they don’t come out of the blue. They may be atrocities, but they are not anomalies. For decades we have drowned children in daily trauma, all in the name of development, property rights, national security, societal well-being, and the list goes on.
Consider, for example, the situation of children and eviction in the United States. A recent study, “‘The rent eats first’: Did ending the national eviction moratorium increase food insufficiency among renters in the United States?”, found exactly what one would expect. With the end of the moratorium, food insufficiency increased among renters. Black renters suffered the impact more than renters of other racial identities (in particular white renters). Women renters felt the impact most strongly. Lower income renters suffered more widely than other income renters. As the researchers noted, none of this was a surprise. But then they note, “Most strikingly, households with children experienced a sharp increase in food insufficiency soon after the revocation of the eviction moratorium”. Most strikingly … and yet not striking at all. In the United States, as elsewhere, eviction targets and impacts women and children first.
We have known this for a long time. Three years ago, in a widely disseminated study, the Eviction Lab found that, in the United States, those most threatened by eviction are young children. Each year, children under age 18 represent 40% of those threatened with eviction. In a discussion of the study, the authors note, “Across the life-course, the risk of experiencing an eviction—a deeply traumatizing event—is highest during childhood. Evicted children face increased risk of food insecurity, exposure to environmental hazards, academic challenges, and a range of long-term physical and mental health problems. We now know that nearly three million children face these risks every single year …. Our results demonstrate the disparate impact of eviction faced by at least two protected classes [under the Fair Housing Act]: Black renters and renters with children. As eviction filing rates return to pre-pandemic levels, it’s these renters who will pay the price.”
Since then, children have “graduated” from “food insecurity”, meaning “households were, at times, unable to acquire adequate food for one or more household members” to “food insufficiency”, meaning a household does not have enough to eat. We have “progressed” from hunger to starvation. This is us, a nation whose policies subject children to trauma in the name of property rights, urban development, “progress”. Do not be surprised at the levels and range of atrocity committed upon the lives of “our” children. For they are the future … and the future is starving.
(By Dan Moshenberg)
(Image Credit: Käthe Kollwïtz, “Hunger” / MOMA)