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Time for America To Stand Up For Children's Rights
President Bush's recently proposed budget included a $123 million assistance package to fund UNICEF's health, education and protection programs throughout the world this coming fiscal year. We applaud the president for this decision and hope Congress will follow his lead. Allocating funds to secure the health and safety of children is an important step toward the creation of a healthier, safer world.Yet, while multimillion-dollar budget allocations are generous and crucial to UNICEF's efforts, the United States could take an additional simple, crucial step toward improving the state of the world's children. Ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child would demonstrate the United States' commitment to supporting the principles of UNICEF and would not cost the country a cent.
Not many government actions carry such significant consequences and cost so little.
The United States is blocking unanimous global support of this treaty, whose sole purpose is to protect the rights of children, citing concerns about sovereignty, federalism, family planning issues and parental rights. Unbelievably, we are the only nation in the world besides Somalia that has not adopted the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. Although adoption of this treaty would have a negligible impact on United States policy, it would send a message of concerned compassion to the world.
At a minimum, adoption has the potential to positively affect the lives of millions of children throughout the world and would demonstrate the United States' commitment to constructively interacting with the world's international governing bodies. A universally agreed-upon human rights treaty would be without precedent and would provide a useful framework on which nations and human rights agencies could base their policy. Moreover, the surge in attention that U.S. ratification would bring to the issues of children's rights would undoubtedly bring increased funding and media coverage aimed at promoting policies that protect children's lives.
The need for U.S. adoption of this treaty, and for enforcement of the protections it provides, is clear. According to UNICEF, every year, 2 million children are exploited as part of the global commercial sex industry. Since 1990, more than 1.5 million children have been killed in armed conflict. Even in the U.S., children are susceptible to harms beyond their control. For example, an estimated 1,400 American children die each year from abuse and neglect.
Ten years ago, Congress recognized the seriousness of this situation when it debated Rep. Bernard Sanders' call for ratification of the convention. A decade later, there is continuing reason for the United States to use its position as a world leader and take decisive action to protect children. Yet, during President Bush's tenure, Congress has not once considered ratifying this treaty.
It is our hope that a member of the 110th Congress will recognize the importance of the convention and assume leadership in this area. In the arena of global diplomacy, there are moments when actions can speak as loudly as dollars.
Joshua T. Lozman and Lainie Rutkow are Sommer scholars and doctoral students at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Copyright © 2007, The Baltimore Sun
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12 Comments so far
Show AllI guess ratifying this treaty would mean the US Government taking on the NRA?
In the US we haven't yet decided that it is wrong to force children to sleep on the streets. I will believe that the US cares for it's children when every child in the US has an uncontestable right to food, housing, medical care and education.
In the US the "right to life" is defined as the right to live from conception to birth by political groups. After you're born they really don't care what happens to you.
Isn't it ironic that the Republican death cult chooses phrases like "right to life" and "culture of life" as fig leaf slogans to distract us from the reality that so many of their policies produce so much death and suffering?
Isn't it amazing that some people still take their words at face value when their actions are so completely the antithesis of their stated objectives?
A great man once said "By their fruits, ye shall know them".
It is not only ratifying the treat, but actively enforcing it by legislation that the US needs to do. Only 13 nations in the world actually back up this UN Convention with legislation that, among other things, protections all children from violence and recognizes that they are not the ownership of their parents. Most importantly, it outlaws all forms of corporal punishment and child abuse; if this legislation was currently kept up by both Korea and the US, then the recent school shooting would NOT HAVE HAPPENED. Violence against children causes those children to become violent later; and for good reason, because no one gave a damn about protecting their rights or happiness, so they are unable to care about anyone else after they've grown up.
http://www.dreamingearth.net
I get so tired of the hypocracy. "The children, the children, our most precious resource" and so on. Bullshit!!!
If our children are so important, why do we have one of the highest infant mortality rates in the industrialized world, no subsidized child care, and such a large percentage of uninsured kids. We don't care about kids, we just say we do. Failure to ratify this UN Convention speaks loudly to this diconnect.
"Ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child would demonstrate the United States' commitment to supporting the principles of UNICEF and would not cost the country a cent."
Are you crazy? Living by others' rule? It is much better policing the world like this!
Bolondvero, Is there any reason not to consider you anything but a troll and ignore you henceforth? If you're saying that by joining with the U.N., the U.S. would be submitting to other's rule, then I would say to you that the same could be said about other representative bodies such as Congress or your state legislature-- are you an anarchist? Why don't you save your bile for non-representative bodies that assert their dominance over our national laws like the WTO?
Actually, I thought bolondvero was being sarcastic. Am I being naive, or does Bolondvero really believe what he/she wrote? Any one who thinks what we're currently doing either isn't paying attention, or doesn't have their head screwed on straight. So, which is it, bolondvero?
I found the following petitions to sign on this issue that seems a good use of our time. I think you'll need to copy paste as follows:
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/SOS/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=3371&track=200604_adv_psa
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/the-u-s-s-ratification-the-un-s-convention-of-the-rights-of-the-child.html
As for the US signing the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child: in a pig's eye. First, we execute children and that's a convention NO NO. Of course, so does Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, although they've all ratified the Convention (Iran promises it's trying really hard to stop doing that).
But our other main reason is a refusal to not use child soldiers (you can enlist at age 17 with parental permission), and we share that distinction with Somalia, the only other country in the world which has refused to ratify. What company we do keep.
If you break down US behavior across the map, it gets pretty ugly. In general, what we say and what we do are going in opposite directions, a tactic our Dear Leader has brought to exquisite perfection. In fact, his asistance package to UNICEF is just another big fat lie, like his empty promise to give $10 million Africa to combat AIDS when what he really did was strong arm Brazil from providing them affordable generic AIDS drugs. But that's Bush. Empty promises and lies.
It's time America stood up for anything.
"We don't care about kids, we just say we do. Failure to ratify this UN Convention speaks loudly to this diconnect." - manchild
"It's time America stood up for anything." - marctileston
Recognizing the disconnect and standing up for something is what using HR 808 (Dept. of Peace) legislation is all about - using HR 808 not as an attempt at legislation as an end in itself but as an organizing tool.
An organizing tool for reaching out to one's neighbor and to one's neighboring "hoods" for bridging the disconnect. This would not only do away with the imperialist's number one tool of divide and conquer, but help culture the quality connection that is missing in most people's lives, like that of gunman Cho and his roommates.
If "We" want to, "We" can stand for something, not against guns or against war, but standing for justice and peace - using HR 808 as a tool for functioning around the principles of justice and peace is an effective endeavor.
The current call of the Detroit Area Department of Peace, for the sanctity of the world's children and human dignity, is for the IMPEACHMENT OF THE BUSH/CHENEY ADMINISTRATION.