RIGHTS: Pluses and Minuses in Fight for Child Rights

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

MEXICO CITY, Nov 22 1999 (IPS) - A look around the world on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) shows progress in some regions, setbacks in others.

A new law in Chile, for example, has put an end to years of discrimination against those whose birth records branded them as “illegitimate.”

Children born out of wedlock now can enjoy such rights as education, entering any school of their choice, that previously was denied them . There were 116,352 children born to unmarried mothers in Chile last year – equivalent to 45.8 percent of all recorded births.

Children in war-torn Sudan, on the other hand, have little to celebrate. This week 40 of them took to the streets in neighbouring Kenya to demonstrate against the 17-year conflict in their homeland that they say as robbed them of their “basic rights.”

“We are fed up,” they complained, of a war that has resulted in extensive rights violations including abductions, forced labour, mass starvation and indiscriminate slaughter.

These two examples illustrates the thrust of debate this week as the world prepares to observe the 10th anniversary of the signing of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on Saturday (Nov 20).

Groups such as US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) argue that the promises of the convention remain hollow. The abuses that Sudanese children have had to endure represent, what HRW Executive Director Louis Whitman describes as, “the failure of the international community toward its children.”

A 32-page HRW report titled “Broken Promises” chronicles countless events where children have been denied their basic rights, despite the pledges made by 191 countries to the Convention.

Wars in more than 30 countries has forced close to 300,000 children into combat situations, resulting in injury, disability, psychological trauma and death.

A significant number of children are being exploited for commercial sex which, the report observes, leads to them “ending up with their health destroyed, victims of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.”

And up to 130 million children had no access to basic education in 1998, the report says.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) however argues that, despite disappointments, the “world is a better place” for children thanks to the CRC

The developments in Chile amplifies the point that governments who have signed the convention need to pass legislation to comply with commitments, according to UNICEF.

Carol Bellamy, the UNICEF executive director, says, “There is no doubt in my mind that this convention has improved the lives of millions of children.”

She attributes legal reform in many countries to have “initiated a process of goal-setting” to take the health and well-being of children seriously.

Taking on the critics she observes that, “some might emphasize the ways in which the CRC has fallen short” of its lofty aims, yet the concrete achievements of the treaty cannot be ignored – its stature as a “fountainhead for the lasting improvement of children’s lives.”

For Saturday’s CRC anniversary celebrations, she has chosen to focus on three themes: the global resolve that brought the Convention into existence; the positive changes it has spurred; and the enormous potential it still holds to fulfill the fundamental rights of children.

The convention, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989, is the most widely ratified treaty in history.

It promises children the right to life, freedom from discrimination, protection during armed conflicts, safety from torture or cruel punishment and the rights to education, health care, adequate standards of living and freedom from economic exploitation and other abuse.

According to UNICEF, the convention has spurred legal reforms to the extent that 50 nations have amended their constitutions to take account of children’s rights – India, South Africa and the Philippines among them. Another 23 states are in the process of reviewing their laws.

In the UN Security Council, it adds, the convention provided the impetus for a special session on Children in Armed Conflict, which was pivotal to the resolutions on the conflicts in Angola and Sierra Leone.

But activists working for children’s rights say they need less words and more deeds on the balance sheet of progress.

In Central America, “governments ratify the CRC but then fail to meet their basic obligations,” says Bruce Harris, the regional director for the non-governmental group Casa Alianza, in Costa Rica.

It is not the Convention that is wanting but the inability of the committee that monitors its implementation to enforce its requirements, Harris says.

“Shame is the committee’s only weapon against governments who do not respect the rights of children,” he says. “But governments who systematically torture and murder street children have no shame,” he says.

Today, street children who go hungry each day number “tens of thousands – consequently they have little reason to celebrate.”

In countries like Nicaragua, Harris adds, they are the constant victims of sexual exploitation.

For Dr. Nafsiah Mboi, who heads the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the continued debate over children’s right has been timely, since implementation of the CRC comes within the scope of her committee’s activities.

She has already agreed to be “more proactive and will offer advice to state parties on how to implement child-friendly solutions” during UN sessions.

RIGHTS: Pluses and Minuses in Fight for Child Rights

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

MEXICO CITY, Nov 22 1999 (IPS) - A look around the world on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) shows progress in some regions, setbacks in others.
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