Protecting Childhood

By Dianne Tangel-Cate

". . . That fair, lost place with a spell of eternity woven over it." -description of childhood by Lucy Maud Montgomery

But there is another canvas for that most important of causes. It is called the "Convention on the Rights of the Child." However, the Convention has neither been widely publicized nor universally ratified. And in countries that have ratified it, enforcement is another matter altogether. (See "Children's Rights:

More Flash Than Substance" by David Gallup, page 7.) Historically, the rights of children have been formally declared in the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924 and in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 20, 1959. Now, however, with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the General Assembly on November 20, 1989, there is greater hope that children's rights will become universally sanctioned. In 54 articles, the General Assembly has outlined the civil, political, economic, social, and humanitarian rights of children.

As stated in an official summary of its main provisions, the Convention "reaffirms the fact that children, because of their vulnerability, need special care and protection, and it places special emphasis on the primary caring and protective responsibility of the family. It also reaffirms the need for legal and other protection of the child before and after birth, the importance of respect for the cultural values of the child's community, and the vital role of international cooperation in securing children's rights."

The Convention's articles promote children's rights regarding non-discrimination; health and health services; social security; name and nationality; standard of living; education; recreation and cultural activities; child labor; juvenile justice; survival and development; rehabilitative care; freedom of expression, thought, conscience, religion, and association; protection of privacy; protection from abuse and neglect; and protection of refugee children, disabled children, children of minorities or indigenous populations, and children without families. Other issues addressed are the implementation of rights; parental guidance and responsibilities; adoption; periodic review of placement; family reunification; access to appropriate information; drug abuse; armed conflicts; torture and deprivation of liberty; sexual exploitation, illicit transfer and non-return, sale, trafficking, abduction, and other forms of exploitation.

Adoption of the Convention by the U.N. General Assembly followed a decade-long drafting process, which began with the 1979 International Year of the Child. The actual drafting was undertaken by a Working Group of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, made up of member nations, observing nations, and NGOs. On September 2, 1990, less than a year after adoption, the treaty entered into force for the first thirty or so ratifying countries. This was the fastest response by the international community to any human rights treaty. By the end of that year, the number of ratifying nations had doubled; and by 1994, about 175 countries had either signed the Convention or become States Parties to it by ratification or accession. Although UNICEF had targeted 1995 for ratification by all States, today 187 countries have ratified the Convention. That leaves the United States and Switzerland, who have signed but not yet ratified it; and the Cook Islands, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and Somalia, who have the unfavorable distinction of being neither States Parties to the Convention nor signatories.

Ratification means countries agree to be legally bound by the Convention's mandates. But, as a U.S. administration official admitted last year, the Convention is not legally enforceable in world courts. In the words of Cynthia Price Cohen of the ChildRights International Research Institute (in a ChildRights booklet, Answers to 30 Questions, about the Convention), "there is no 'enforcement' in the usual sense, because there are no sanctions for a nation's non-compliance. The United Nations is not an international government so much as it is a cooperative organization of nations, each of which retain all of the elements of sovereignty." Moreover, a country can ratify with reservations and understandings, thereby exempting itself from complete compliance. The Convention also cannot override State Constitutions, and any State can denounce its treaty obligations at any time.

Each ratifying nation is supposed to submit a report within two years to the Convention's monitoring body, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, on the efforts it has made to implement the goals of the Convention. Thereafter, parties to the Convention are expected to provide reports every five years. The Committee's ten members, experts in the field of children's rights, examine the reports and provide feedback: effective progress is praised, and recommendations are made where deficiencies are apparent. Last year's members were from Barbados, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Peru, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, and Zimbabwe; however, members are not intended to represent their individual governments. In evaluating reports, the Committee drafts its own rules of procedure.

Should ratification of the Convention be an optional, voluntary measure, left up to individual nation-states? As the chief violators of children's rights, what incentive do nation-states have to ratify, fund, and work to expand the formal protection of children's rights? Sure, it's a crucial issue, but so is protection of the environment, which also is not a priority in most governmental agendas. Although any country would be hard-pressed to completely deny the significance of this Convention, politics or other issues have, as usual, prevented some countries from committing fully. In the cases of Switzerland and the U.S., conflicts between state and federal laws provide roadblocks to ratification.

But isn't this a global issue requiring-demanding-universal support? Children, like humans everywhere, transcend the arbitrary, invisible borders used to define the exclusive nation-states we have created. Aren't children's rights also human rights, and isn't the protection of human rights essential to a just and peaceful world and a hopeful future? Other than saving earth, nothing is more important, and it can only be mandated by world law. (Of course, basic human rights, such as the right to life, cannot be given, for they are innate; the protection and delineation of them, however, is essential.)

Although the Convention provides a good, broad representation of children's rights, it does reveal ambiguities that leave room for interpretation. Undefined terms such as "appropriate," "harmonious," "harmful," and "injurious" abound, and occasionally, open-ended restrictions and exceptions are alluded to. In addition, it is unclear where cultural liberties and parental rights supersede the mandates of the Convention. The document repeatedly declares that "States Parties shall respect the rights...of the parents," "taking into account the rights and duties of parents...," "with regard to economic, social and cultural rights," and "taking due account of the importance of the traditions and cultural values of each people for the protection ...of the child." And in evaluating each State Party's report, the Committee on the Rights of the Child is "to take into consideration national customs and individual State Party interpretation of the Convention's text," according to Cynthia Price Cohen.

Although the Convention's Preamble states that "the child . . . needs special safeguards and care . . . before as well as after birth," it appears to skirt the issue of abortion. Ambiguously defining a child as ". . . every human being below the age of eighteen years . . ." (Art. 1), the drafters have allowed individual nations to tailor the definition to their own standards. In this way, Article 6(1), ". . . every child has the inherent right to life," and Article 6(2), "States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child," remain sensitive to cultural interpretation.

With increasing awareness of the widespread practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), one wonders about conformance to Article 19(1), for example, which reads, "States Parties shall take all appropriate . . . measures to protect the child from all forms of physical . . . violence, injury, or abuse. . ."; or Article 24(3): "States Parties shall take all effective and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children"-as most of the countries where FGM is still widely practiced have ratified the Convention! Assuming the Committee has made recommendations regarding FGM to those nations where it is still practiced, those suggestions obviously have not been heeded. (For more on FGM, see "Atrocities Against Women: Female Genital Mutilation" by Marcia Mason, page 4.)

The question of how to avoid overstepping cultural rights is an important one on the national as well as global level. However, without either infringing upon parents' responsibilities or interfering with cultural differences, it would seem that the right to protection from forced injury would be a reasonable one. Ultimately, educating children about their rights, and then protecting those rights, is everyone's responsibility. Because wherever and however one lives, childhood ought to be a magical time of discovery, wonder, learning, growth, and joy.

Progress has been in the important recognition, as stated in the Convention's Preamble, that "the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world," and in the crucial yet simple realization that children are our future.

(For more information about the Free the Children organization, contact Craig Kielburger, 16 Thornbank Rd., Thornhill, Ontario L4J 2A2, Canada; (905) 881-0853; fax, (905) 881-1849.)

Dianne Tangel-Cate is director of the World Syntegrity Project.