About a week ago it was discussed in the United Arab Emirates what will be the new Law of the Rights of the Child, which includes up to 77 items that must ensure the good of the children.
Among those articles is one that especially attracts attention because it states that Babies should be breastfed, by law, for at least two years.
Breastfeeding up to two years
As you know and have commented on more than one occasion, the WHO (and UNICEF, and the AEP, and ...) recommends breastfeeding babies exclusively until six months and accompanying food for at least two years.
This, which is a recommendation, for being the best for the baby and the mother, in the Arab Emirates they have taken it to the letter and they consider it a child's right. A right that must be fulfilled. In fact, in case babies are abandoned or orphaned, it must be another person, another woman, the one who nurses them.
According to the presidents, "Breastfeeding is not just giving infant milk, it is a relationship between a mother and a child" and for that reason they consider that it is not an option of the mothers, but your obligation. In case women violate this law they can be denounced by their husbands.
Another culture, no doubt
The first thing we should keep in mind is that, obviously, we are talking about another culture. If we only keep the part of breastfeeding, it sounds pretty bad and it's hard to understand. The fact is that the law includes quite strong points, such as protecting children from abuse, sexual exploitation, parental negligence, laziness, organized crime, forced begging and other difficulties, such as parents who cannot care of the kids. Sexual crime with children is also prohibited.
As far as rights are concerned, children have the right to health care, to an education, to live in a safe environment with the expenses paid and the right to meet their parents and maintain a relationship with them.
It is true that in Spain we also have laws that regulate all this, because we have to have them, but they are being approved now, and they are things that here sound like distant, something like the sign that here we have a time of advantage if we talk about human rights.
Can you force a baby to breastfeed?
Returning to the issue of breastfeeding and the obligation by law to breastfeed a baby up to two years, the Arab Emirates claim that most mothers manage to breastfeed their children by forcing them to do so.
In Spain there is no obligation, but the recommendation to do so, and the percentage of women who breastfeed a child up to two years should be negligible (if in the world only 38% reach the exclusive six months, imagine up to two years). There will be those who think that forcing us will make the numbers increase, but as they say: "it is enough that they force me to do it so that I have even less desire to do so."
In Norway, social awareness about breastfeeding is such, the support of the entire population is such that Normally, most children breastfeed., even when they are two years old. Nobody forces them to do it, but it is already a cultural, health and logic issue. They do it, period, because they know what the baby should receive and what the mother should contribute.
But of course, behind there is a whole network of people, associations and professionals who help mothers to make it possible. And ahead, then I imagine that in front of us we have a population with a higher sociocultural level than ours (and currently a higher percentage of breastfeeding is associated with a higher sociocultural level).
By this I mean that forcing women to breastfeed for two years seems to me absolutely out of place. It is true that in terms of health it is the best for a baby, but achieving high rates of breastfeeding can and should be achieved based on extensive previous work of professional training and public awareness, because it is not the same breastfeed until two years because you want to do it, that breastfeeding until that age because if I do not do it my husband will denounce me.
