A side event organized jointly by the
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Permanent Mission of
Ireland launched a new technical guidance document on ‘the application of a
human rights based approach to reduce and eliminate preventable mortality and
morbidity of children under 5’. The technical guidance is very timely in
respect of babies between birth and age 5 however it ignores the elephant in the
room, the approximately 45 million unborn babies aborted before birth every
year.
Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 4
called for the reduction of child mortality by 2/3 from the 1990 level. Figures
presented at the side event say that the rate has halved from 90 deaths per
1000 live births to 46 in 2013, most of which (95%) occurs in Africa and Asia.
The global rate of decrease is accelerating it was 1.2% in 1994-5 and has now
reached 4%. Clearly there is still much to do.
The question that must be asked is why
is the largest and most vulnerable group of children the approximately 45
million unborn babies who are slaughtered every year, ignored when preventable
child mortality is under discussion?
Surely this is contrary to the provisions of the CRC and in point of
fact represents a double standard. The unborn clearly come into the category of
being under 5 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in its
preamble says:
“The child by reason of his physical and
mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate
legal protection, before as well as after birth”.
The real issues are usually avoided and
the standard UN argument in support of ignoring the child before birth is that
the CRC only applies from birth. This argument however does not stand up when
the travaux preparatoire (the history of the negotiations) is considered.
Poland being a communist country at the time of the negotiations proposed that
the Convention would apply only from birth. This was rejected and the ensuing
document is not limited to born children only.
It should also be noted that the
personhood of the child before birth is implied in the CRC by referring to 'the
child' before as well as after birth.
This resolution is an update of last
years one on the same issue, which called for the preparation of technical
guidance which was announced today.
The report tells us that most child
mortality is due to a small number of diseases and conditions 43% occur among
newborn babies from birth to 28 days and are mainly due to pre-term birth
complications, birth asphyxia and trauma, and sepsis. After the first 28 days,
until age of 5 years, the majority of deaths are attributable to infectious
diseases such as pneumonia (22%), diarrhoeal diseases (15%), malaria (12%) and
HIV/AIDS (3%). The vast majority
of conditions and diseases that lead to death among children under 5 years of
age are preventable and treatable through cost-effective interventions.
