|
|
|
|
  |
 |
 |
 |
|  |
Monitoring The UN > The UN and Children's Rights Introduction It was not until the end of the 1950s that the human rights movement
began to pay significant attention to the specific rights and needs
of children. In the decades before this time, and particularly during
and between the two World Wars, the human rights movement focused its
attention on the rights of adults, as political dissidents, rather than
on the rights of children. The suffering endured by children is not
caused by any political opinions they hold; as a result, children have
often been neglected in past attempts to protect those individuals who
were persecuted because of their political beliefs. Also, many children
in war-torn regions have been unaided by human rights efforts because,
having been separated from their families and left without birth certificates
and other basic documentation, they are "invisible" to governments and
some non-governmental organizations. The plight of war-affected children has also been overlooked because
many of the hardships suffered by children, such as psychological trauma,
are not "visible" hardships. Even children who are not directly involved
in conflict may witness atrocities that leave them emotionally scarred
and harm their efforts to develop and mature. A 1995 survey in Rwanda
by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF)
found that almost 80 percent of the 3,030 children involved in the survey
had lost an immediate family member; more than 30 percent of the children
had witnessed the murder of at least one family member. The Declaration of
the Rights of the Child, proclaimed by the United Nations (UN)
General Assembly on 20 November 1959, was a landmark international agreement
that truly initiated the children's rights movement. The Convention
on the Rights of the Child, proclaimed by the UN precisely 30
years later, reaffirmed the principles of the Declaration and reiterated
the need for a sustained international effort to protect the rights
of all children. The Convention is the most widely ratified treaty in
the UN's history: 191 countries (all except the United States of America
and Somalia) have ratified the Convention. The following sections will provide information on the various different issues involved in children's rights, the relevant institutions, and the key international agreements that have been established. While many of the children's rights abuses that occur are present in all societies, the difficulties encountered by children are most acute in developing nations and wherever armed conflict occurs. In the past decade, armed conflict has killed approximately two million children, maimed another four million, and orphaned another one million; currently, an estimated 300,000 children are directly involved in armed conflict, many of them as child soldiers. For these reasons, much of the discussion in the following sections will focus on children that suffer, directly or indirectly, as a result of armed conflict.
Human Rights Watch Website: Children's Rights Section: http://www.hrw.org/ UNICEF Press Release: UNICEF Hails Entry Into Force of Optional Protocol
on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography:
http://www.unicef.org/newsline/01pr81.htm/
UN Website: Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, The Impact of Armed
Conflict on Child Development, Promoting Psychological Recovery and
Social Reintegration: http://www.un.org/rights/impact.htm#promoting
Government of Canada's Human Security Website: Protection of Civilians, War-Affected Children: http://www.humansecurity.gc.ca/civilians_wac-e.asp |
