Called 'Say Yes for Children', the campaign is expected to reach the far corners of the globe in an attempt to rally people behind 10 overarching principles that seek to protect children.

The 10 principles are: Leave No Child Out; Put Children First; Care for Every Child; Fight HIV/AIDS; Stop Harming and Exploiting Children; Listen to Children; Educate Every Child; Protect Children from War; Protect the Earth for Children; and Fight Poverty: Invest in Children.

Countries that have held or are planning launches range from Angola and Benin in Africa to Brazil and Chile in Latin America and Bangladesh and Cambodia in Asia.

The pledge begins with a simple plea: ''Too many of the world's children suffer the effects of war, poverty, sickness, discrimination or abuse. This is your opportunity to send a message to the world's leaders that this is unacceptable. This is your opportunity to say Yes to Children.''

The leaders of the campaign include former South African President Nelson Mandela, founder and head of Microsoft, Bill Gates, British actress and political activist Vanessa Redgrave and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The NGOs participating in the campaign include Save the Children, World Vision, Netaid.Org Foundation, PLAN International and the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee.

Launched simultaneously at UN headquarters in New York and at a middle school in London Thursday, the campaign is also seeking to register world opinion on issues crucial to children.

The pledges, which can be made online (www.gmfc.org) and offline will eventually be presented to world leaders who will be in New York Sep. 19-21 for the UN Special Session on Children.

''The Special Session will indeed be a special moment in history - a time for world leaders to commit themselves to specific actions to help the children of the world,'' says Annan.

''Say Yes for Children is an opportunity for all of us to show them the way, and to give visibility and a voice to the children who need it most,'' he notes.

The 10 principles build on the 1989 landmark UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most ratified international human treaty ever, and on the 1990 World Summit for Children, where 71 world leaders committed themselves to specific goals for children and young people.

Ambassador Patricia Durrant of Jamaica, chairperson of the Preparatory Committee for the Special Session, says the purpose of the Session is to recommit world leaders to the goals and timetable adopted in 1990. Durrant says that during the last 10 years, substantial progress has been made in fulfilling the objectives of the World Summit for Children. But much still remains to be done, she adds.

UNICEF says the reality of life is that more than 10 million children under the age of five die each year, mostly from preventable disease and malnutrition.

Additionally, one-third of the world's children fail to complete five years of basic schooling while over 120 million of primary school age, mostly girls, are not enrolled in school.

At the same time, there are over 300,000 children who have been recruited as participants in armed conflicts worldwide while over 60 million work in dangerous circumstances.

Meanwhile, the Geneva-based International Labour Organisation (ILO) has also launched a global movement for the ratification of the ILO Convention on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour. As of December last year, only about 37 of the 189 UN member states had ratified it.

The Convention, which applied to all persons under the age of 18, directs governments to ban practices such as slave labour and the bondage of children.

Other actions to be banned include the exploitation of children through prostitution or pornography, their use in armed conflicts, in the service of drug trafficking and in all forms of hazardous work.

The convention also calls for enacting, implementing and enforcing laws to protect children of being exploited, as well as monitoring and reporting on progress.

The ILO says the aim of the convention is to provide a decent childhood for 250 million children who, at present, were obliged to work - 60 million of them in the worst forms of child labour.

Copyright 2001 IPS

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