In 1989, the UN Convention on the Rights of
the Child (CRC) became the first legally binding international
convention to affirm human rights for all children. While great progress
has been made on child rights in the past 20 years, much work remains
to be done. Dan Seymour, Chief of the Gender and Rights Unit of UNICEF’s
Policy and Practice Division, offers his assessment.
The CRC represents a major milestone in the historic effort to
achieve a world fit for children. As a binding treaty of international
law, it codifies principles that Member States of the United Nations
agreed to be universal – for all children, in all countries and
cultures, at all times and without exception, simply through the fact of
their being born into the human family.
The treaty has inspired changes in laws to better protect children,
altered the way international organisations see their work for children,
and supported an agenda to better protect children in situations of
armed conflict.
Worldwide impact
In every region of the world, we find numerous examples of the CRC’s
impact on law and practice. In 1990, Brazil followed ratification of the
Convention with a new Statute of the Child and Adolescent based on its
principles. Burkina Faso created a Children’s Parliament to review
proposed legislation, in response to the principle of participation set
forth by the Convention.
The CRC was the first international convention to be ratified by
South Africa, leading to changes such as the prohibition of corporal
punishment and development of a separate juvenile justice system. The
Russian Federation also set up juvenile and family courts in response to
the CRC, while Morocco established a National Institute to Monitor
Children Rights.
Finland took a number of new measures for children inspired by the
Convention, such as a plan for early childhood education and care, a
curriculum for the comprehensive school, quality recommendations for
school health care, and an action plan against poverty and social
exclusion.
And Eritrea issued its Transitional Penal Code, with penalties for
parents or guardians who neglect, abuse or abandon their children.
Challenges ahead
This wide acceptance of the CRC can give the misleading impression
that it is neither challenging nor new. Yet the very idea that children
are the holders of rights is far from universally recognised. Too many
children are considered to be the property of adults, and are subjected
to various forms of abuse and exploitation.
The recognition that children have a right to a say in decisions
affecting them, articulated in Article 12, is not only disrespected on a
regular basis; its very legitimacy is questioned by many.
Nor can we claim that we live in a world where children's best
interests are the primary consideration in all decisions affecting them –
as demanded by Article 3 of the Convention. In fact, the contrary is
evidenced by the way the humankind allocates its resources, the limited
attention it gives to ensuring the best for its children, the way it
conducts its wars.
Foundation for change
Like all powerful ideas, the CRC reflects a demand for deep and
profound change in the way the world treats its children.
That the world fails to respect the rights of its children – even to
deny that children have rights – is clear in the alarming numbers of
children who die of preventable causes, who do not attend school or
attend a school that cannot offer them a decent education, who are left
abandoned when their parents succumb to AIDS, or who are subjected to
violence, exploitation and abuse against which they are unable to
protect themselves.
We cannot claim that the Convention has achieved what needs to be
achieved. Rather, it has provided all of us with an essential foundation
to play our part in changing what needs to be changed.
Power of the Convention
Effecting that change requires us to use the CRC in its fullest
sense, and to take advantage of its three fundamental strengths.
- First, it is a legal instrument, defining unequivocally the
responsibilities of governments to children within their jurisdiction
- Second, it is a framework for the duties borne by different
actors at different levels of society to respond to the rights of
children, and it helps us understand the knowledge, skills, resources or
authority needed to fulfil those duties
- Third, it is an ethical statement, both reflecting and building
upon core human values about our commitment to collectively provide the
world’s children with the best we have to give.
This 20th anniversary of the CRC reminds us, most of all, of what we
have left to do. The Convention demands a revolution that places
children at the heart of human development – not only because this
offers a strong return on our investment (although it does) nor because
the vulnerability of childhood calls upon our compassion (although it
should), but rather for a more fundamental reason: because it is their
right.
Dan Seymour is Chief of the Gender and Rights Unit of UNICEF’s Policy
and Practice Division