Why Doesn't The U.S. Respect Children And Their Rights ?

The United States is the richest nation in the world, and it prides itself on its democracy and respect for human rights. That makes it even less understandable as to why this country doesn't want to extend those same rights and protections to its own children.

Back in 1989, the world's countries came together through the United Nations and created an international treaty called the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This treaty lays out the rights that should be afforded to all children, and obliges all signatories to abide by those rights. To date, it is the most widely accepted of any international treaty, having been signed and ratified by 193 nations. The only two nations that have not ratified this treaty are Somalia and the United States.

That's right. The great bastion of freedom and human rights, the United States, has failed to ratify the treaty on children's rights, even though it has had 25 years now to do so. One of the reasons given for this failure is that the treaty bans the death penalty or life in prison for any child (defined as anyone under the age of 18), and the U.S. refuses to give up its "right" to kill or imprison for life a child. I think it goes further though -- to the wishes of the right-wing to ignore the needs of poor and disadvantaged children.

It is a fact that fully 1/5 of the children in the United States live in poverty -- and more than one million of them are homeless. In addition, far too many children are stuck in inadequate schools that don't provide them the skills needed to better themselves in our society -- and if they do get through high school with an adequate education, colleges have become far too expensive for many of the poor to even consider attending.

This country is rich enough so solve all those problems. Our failure to do so is not because of a lack of wealth, but from a lack of the political will to do so. Our politicians, especially those on the right (the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats), has decided that cutting taxes for the rich and providing unneeded subsidies for corporations is more important than providing a decent life and adequate education for all the nation's children. In short, greed is more important than the nation's children.

Some of you may think that the children in this country are still better off than children in many countries. And that would be true if you wanted to compare our children to those in the most destitute countries in the world. But we are not a destitute nation. We are the wealthiest nation in the world, and we should be doing a lot better than we are.

UNICEF looked at the 29 wealthiest nations, and rated them on the well-being of their children -- using five criteria for the rating (material, health & safety, education, behaviors & risk, housing & environment). And the United States did very poorly, finishing in 26th place out of those 29 nations -- an absolutely indefensible position considering the wealth of this nation. And it looks like the people in this country know that (or at least a good portion of them). Only about 66% say the children in this country get the respect & dignity they deserve.

It is time to rectify this deplorable situation. First, the United States needs to ratify and abide by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Then it needs to fully fund educational programs (from Head Start to High Schools and Colleges), and it needs to fully fund the social programs that poor children depend on (welfare, housing, food stamps, etc.). Failure to do so is not just politically detestable -- it is immoral.

The chart below list the UNICEF ratings of children's well-being in the 29 wealthiest countries (from best to worst) and the percentage of each country's population that believes children are afforded the respect & dignity they deserve.