Twenty years ago, the United Nations General Assembly approved the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This human rights treaty declares that those under the age of 18 must be protected from violence, exploitation, discrimination and neglect. To me, that sounds like something every nation should support. And in fact, it is the most widely ratified international human rights treaty. Who could possibly oppose guaranteeing basic human rights for children?
The answer to that question is that there are two nations that have refused to ratify the treaty protecting the world's children -- Somalia and the United States! The United States is quick to condemn other countries about their failures in the area of human rights, and yet we are one of only two countries in the entire world that refuses to ratify a treaty guaranteeing basic human rights to children. Is that not the very definition of hypocrisy?
But it gets worse. Somalia has now announced that they will ratify the treaty. UNICEF said it has been told by the Somali government that the "Somali cabinet of ministers has agreed in principle to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child."
That leaves the United States standing alone in refusing to ratify basic human rights for children. Every single nation in the whole world, both those civilized nations and those we don't consider to be very civilized, have approved a treaty guaranteeing basic human rights for children -- except the United States, the nation who preaches the most about human rights.
A spokesman for the United States mission to the United Nations says that President Obama is "committed to undertaking a thorough and thoughtful review of the Convention on the Rights of the Child." How long is that going to take? It's already been twenty years. How many more decades will pass before the United States government decides that children deserve basic human rights?
I am ashamed that the United States has failed to ratify this treaty, and I believe all decent Americans should be ashamed.
This is an absolute disgrace.
ReplyDeletemakes me sick..what's to think about?
ReplyDeleteIt is shocking, isn't it? I work to promote children's rights in the UK and it's important to know that, even in economically and politically stable nations such as ours, there's a very long way to go before children will have the same access to their rights for protection, provision and participation as are available to adults.
ReplyDeleteThe UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) interprets the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights as it should be applied in the special case of children whose journey between wholly dependent infancy and independent adulthood means that, for a greater or lesser period between birth and age 18, they must rely on others for their physical, financial and emotional security.
The UNCRC identifies each nation's responsibility to ensure that human children have access to what they need in order to develop as effective human beings. It covers basic physical needs - such as access to food and water (challenges that we might appear to have dealt with in the developing world, although some children's rights thinkers have begun to look at the levels of salt and sugar in western children's diet as evidence that nation states are not sufficiently protecting and providing for children in this regard). Some other rights are to education, play, family, services, safety from harm and - most controversially (and most centrally) - to be consulted and to have their views taken seriously.
All of the rights laid down in the UNCRC address basic human needs. They are not about 'wants'. In the case of rights to education, for instance, they do not involve any child's 'right' to eg a place at private school or to be taken to school in the car by their parents. What they involve is a child's right to an education that enables their personal human development now and in the future - and there is room for improvement in any society for that.
As I understand it (and I am no expert on this at all), the US has always taken the view that its own policies sufficiently uphold children's rights. It's quite clear that this cannot be the case when children are imprisoned and physical punishment is enabled by the state (both these things are also true in the UK and the latter is the area that I specifically work to change). There will be myriad other examples.
Somalia is, of course, a completely unstable state. The UNCRC has been ratified by many such states who, from the evidence of how they mistreat their adult population will most certainly be contravening children's rights. But the fact that they have ratified the convention means that there is at least some way for the UN to monitor children's experiences and to hold these nations to account. This information informs NGOs who work in these difficult circumstances and will enable them to better target their resources.
Of course, such UN monitoring is just the intervention that the US has always shied away from. But, if the US accepts its responsibilities in terms of human rights, then it must accept the same for children and join the family. I guess it's up to folk like yourself to press for that, and to send President Obama a clear message that change in this area is also needed.
As a final comment, children's rights in the US have often been dismissed because they would weaken parents' rights. But the point about human rights is that every individual holds the same rights; they complement each other and pull gently against one another. They constitute the ultimate in give and take. So parents' rights and children's rights should be regarded as working together.
Good luck over there