The Human Rights Council devoted a full-day on Wednesday 11th March to discus children’s rights, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The discussion focused on the achievements and challenges in implementing the Convention at both international and national levels.
The panels comprehensively considered all the major issues on the topic of Children’s Rights except the “elephant in the room” the abortion question. The termination of unborn life was studiously and shamefully ignored by all.
Two of the ideas tabled for assisting in the implementation of the Convention were firstly the use of the new Universal Periodic Review (UPR) system to report on how nation states are meeting their commitments and secondly the possibility of drafting a new Optional Protocol to the Convention to provide a communications procedure as the CRC is the only International Convention without either a mandatory reporting or complaints procedure.
High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay who opened the session said “Children are no longer regarded as the property of parents or the passive recipients of charity or goodwill, but as rights-holders,” […] There remained ample ground for “very serious concern”, Pillay said.
“UN figures” according to Pillay “show that each year nearly 10 million children die from preventable causes before their fifth birthday, and that that some 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide. The UN Study on Violence against Children reported that some 80 to 98 per cent of children suffer physical punishment in their homes, while the World Health Organization in 2002 estimated that 150 million girls and 73 million boys under 18 experienced forced sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual violence. Yet, all too often, crimes and violence against children continue to go unpunished”.
These are shocking statistics by any standard and clearly require immediate and prolonged attention. Every child has a right to a childhood lived in peace security and safety. For further coverage see UN report
Sadly the greatest crime of all the killing of the unborn did not even get a mention. The ideological approach to human rights which sees the unborn child as a non person and choice rights as being supreme is a travesty that must contine to be challenged. The international community must be brought to understand that we cannot continue to ignore the rights of the most vulnerable.
