The
UN children's agency says one billion children around the world are
still deprived of food, shelter, clean water and healthcare 20 years
after the adoption of a treaty guaranteeing children's rights.
Hundreds of millions more children are constantly threatened by
violence, Unicef said in a report released on Thursday assessing the
situation two decades after the UN adopted the Convention of the Rights
of the Child on November 20 1989.
It all felt
wild and uncontained, like on the playground. I was the outsider kid,
wrong jacket, wrong hat. Or maybe I just stepped out of my car at the
wrong time. With a whoop they were on me, surrounding me, laughing.
What great fun.
In America -- in my country
-- I fear we are losing the battle for our humanity. Some say we have
already lost it.
Deep down I think they may
be right.
Such is the level of violence,
voyeurism and detachment displayed this October in Richmond, California,
when at least two dozen students cheered, laughed or simply stood by
and watched as a 15-year-old girl was repeatedly raped, beaten and brutalized
by an "unknown number of assailants."
Violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is wrong. So is violence against people in Afghanistan and Iraq. But in the bizarre culture of identity politics, there are no alliances among the oppressed. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr.
