UN Convention on the Rights of the Child worth the paper it's printed on?

By Lynda Hurst

Is the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child worth the paper it's printed on?
On its 20th anniversary, the unspeakably tragic lives of so many children in the world force the question.Signed on Nov. 20, 1989, the agreement spelled out the basic human rights of those under age 18: the right to survival, full development, non-discrimination and protection from abuse and exploitation. It's been ratified by 193 nations, including Canada, but not the U.S. – a fact President Barack Obama has called "embarrassing" (it's now under review). Two subsequent amendments restrict the use of under-18s in armed conflict and ban the sale of children, child prostitution and pornography.

On paper, the convention – in fact, the very idea that children have rights of their own – was a profound advance in international human values. On paper, the world cares deeply about its children.But in reality?

"It's the most ratified, least implemented convention ever," says Kathy Vandergrift, chair of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children.

In 1989, when optimism was in the political air, the agreement was seen as visionary. Who could object? Nations rushed to sign on.

But the global context has changed, says Vandergrift: "Now we have to move from idealism to using it as a practical tool for change.

"Not that there haven't been pockets of progress. South Africa, like Canada and Russia, has set up a separate juvenile justice system. In northern Ethiopia – where half of all girls are married to strangers before age 15, two-thirds before the onset of menstruation – the Berhane Hewan Project has enabled more than 11,000 girls to delay marriage.

How? By providing the incentive of a $25 sheep to families who commit to keeping their daughters in school.But overall, say activists, the pace of recognition, let alone realization, of children's rights has been glacial.Some nations have simply ignored the paper they signed.

Iran continues to execute child criminals. India still has no ban on child labour, with 70 to 80 million workers under age 13 eking out a living for their families or themselves.

A snapshot of other key areas after 20 years:

.

CHILD SOLDIERS

This spring, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon identified 56 governments and 14 armed groups that continue to use child soldiers (under age 15) in breach of the convention.

Only seven arrest warrants have been issued by the International Criminal Court, though former Liberian president Charles Taylor and a Congolese warlord are currently being tried for war crimes, including the use of child soldiers – in Taylor's case, the infamous "Small Boys Unit.

"Since 2000, the UN has deployed Child Protection Advisers on peacekeeping operations. But while the Security Council repeatedly says it will consider sanctions against violators, it has done nothing, says Georgette Gagnon, Africa specialist at Human Rights Watch in New York.

"The convention set the standards, but implementation is what counts. A few children have been returned, but there is no general improvement in the situation.

"Children caught in conflict zones are still killed, maimed, orphaned, abducted, deprived of education and medical care, and left traumatized. While boys are forced to fight, girls are routinely sexually abused.

.

SEXUAL ABUSE

Child prostitution and trafficking, of both sexes, continues unabated in many regions. UNICEF says many of the 60,000 child prostitutes in the Philippines work in brothels in Angeles City, a sex-tourist mecca. But Russia has also become a destination for niche tourism with up to a quarter of all sex workers adolescent or younger.

In India, about 10,000 Nepalese girls, most aged between nine and 16 and prized for their fair skin, are trafficked in and sold to brothels every year. In the West, some 70 per cent of runaways and homeless youth end up sexually exploited.

The practice of bacha bazi – keeping adolescent boys as performers cum sex slaves – has resurfaced in Afghanistan (if indeed it ever went away). "Nobody talks about it," Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN's special representative on children and armed conflict said last year. "Everyone says 'Well, you know, it's been there for 1,000 years.' "

.

PORNOGRAPHY

In ways unimaginable in 1989, the global spread of the Internet has increased the volume, accessibility, profitability and brutality of prepubescent child pornography.

The U.S. Justice Department estimates between 50,000 and 100,000 individuals are involved in organized rings worldwide, one-third operating from within the U.S.

In March, Austrian police cracked an Internet ring that stretched across 170 countries. In September, German police broke up a cyberporn network with simultaneous raids carried out in Canada, the U.S., Switzerland, Austria, Spain and Bulgaria.

.

LABOUR

Perceived economic need continues to trump convention protections. UNICEF says there are about 158 million child workers globally. Children aged 5 to 14 account for 22 per cent of the labour force in Asia, 17 per cent in Latin America and 32 per cent in Africa.

This month, it was reported that Uzbekistan youngsters as young as 11 are being taken from school to pick the cotton harvest. This, despite a government child-labour ban last year after some Western firms boycotted Uzbek cotton. That was then. Uzbekistan recently signed contracts for cotton fibre to China, Russia and Iran. The kids are back in the fields.

.

SEXISM

The plight of young females has come to the fore, at least, since 1989.

Consider: the majority of the world's 130 million illiterate youth are girls. In sub-Saharan Africa, 122 million girls live on less than $1 a day. Nearly half of all sexual assaults are against girls under 15. And underage marriage remains a cultural ritual in parts of southwest Asia, the Mideast and Africa. Jordan's Queen Rania recently called the oppression of half the human race "so illogical it verges on the absurd." Girls turn into women who pass on poverty and subjugation to their children "in the most interminable endurance race ever, where the end is never in sight, and no one ever wins.

"At least not yet."