International convention is to protect children's rights
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from February 1990.
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It has been ten years in the drafting between governments, the United Nations Department of Human Rights, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) which have consultative status with the UN, and the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF).
All agree that this latest international legal instrument in the UN human rights arsenal augurs a better future for children worldwide. But many governments and virtually all child advocacy agencies and other NGOs regret a missed opportunity to make it better yet. The Convention is the result of compromise between 161 governments. It becomes illegal in most parts of the world to sell or traffic in children of any age "for any purpose or in any form." And even governments must confine the killing of children to combat duty and only from the age of 15 upwards.
So the Convention contains humankind's best current vision of "the best interests of the child," as agreed by those governments with the most influence among UN membership which were willing to consider at this stage of evolution their social conscience versus military and economic priorities.
Many child advocacy agencies have reservations. These leaders in the long and intense NGO effort to save children from the death and destruction of warfare were deeply disappointed in the Conventions' Article 38 - the "cannon fodder clause" which permits the use of children on combat duty.
The Convention defines childhood as ending at the age of 18 and all other provisions of the document extend protection up to that age. But the age limit was dropped to 15 in Article 38 as a result of what an NGO representative called "superpower arm-twisting on behalf of client countries," referring to nations which allegedly recruit "even 12-year olds to smuggle explosives." NGOs pressed strongly for changing the combat age limit back to 18, the original draft, but failed to sway governments. As one said: "It is an unprecedented consensus document agreed to by 161 governments. Obviously, the lowest common denominator is the result."
Nevertheless, UNICEF Executive Director James P. Grant has hailed the Convention and its unanimous adoption by the 44th General Assembly as "a miracle, something that I didn't expect to see in my lifetime."
And Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said "the United Nations has given the global community an international instrument of high quality, protecting the dignity, equality and basic human rights of the worlds children."
Under-Secretary-General for Human Rights Jan Martenson called the Convention a "most comprehensive and significant treaty on children's rights," adding: "When it enters into force, it will set universally accepted standards for the protection of children and will provide an invaluable framework for advocacy on behalf of children in every country in the world."
The Convention articles cover a broad spectrum of civic, social, economic and political rights, affirming a child's right to life, health, education and freedom of expression as well as the right to a name, to acquire a nationality and to preserve an identity. It also provides for the protection of children from all forms of physical and mental violence, neglect and abuse, including sexual and economic exploitation. The Convention breaks new ground in extending international legal protection of the adoption process by paying special attention to the needs of mentally and physically disabled children.
UNICEF's Per Miljeteig-Olssen, who participated in the drafting for six years five of them as Norway's delegate to the working group holds a positive view: "The Convention first and foremost is a new treaty body in international law, a new morality, establishing a standard of rights of a child as an individual, not as a possession of adults. It obligates the adult world to treat children well, not as an act of charity but as a matter of their legal rights. This new morality, these standards have important implications for the future."
While amendments are possible and the NGOs vow to keep on lobbying for them they are not thought likely any time soon.
However, ratification of the Convention by a minimum of 20 countries required for its provisions Cont'd. on page 15 from page 3 to enter into force as international law is expected to take place in record time, as laws go. Elissavet Stamatopoulou-Robbins, head of the UN Human Rights Liaison Office in New York, says ratification may happen within a year, but Nordic countries are among those advocating speedy ratification at the time of the World Summit for Children, a gathering of Heads of State to take place at the United Nations in September.
In the United States, which has yet to ratify many earlier international human rights laws, an active movement headed by Senators Bill Bradley and John Luger and UNICEF goodwill ambassador actress Liv Ullmann, has formed to lobby for ratification.
Once it becomes law governments are obliged to raise standards of children's well being in their countries up to those of the Convention and to submit a progress report every five years to a special committee set up for the purpose.
GEMINI NEWS About the author: ELVI RUOTTINEN is an accredited correspondent at the United Nations and has written for international publications for over 20 years.
