Twenty years after the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN is working in partnership with NGOs and civil society, striving to meet the standards set forth in the agreement. Chelsea Moore explains.
Moore: The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely and rapidly ratified human rights treaty in history. Only two countries, Somalia and the United States, have not ratified the agreement. Despite its wide acceptance, Mila Rosenthal, executive director of HealthRight International, acknowledges the roadblocks to its full implementation.
Rosenthal: One of the challenges is that this is a population without a voice. So it's a very difficult population to empower to speak on its own behalf. It's a political challenge. It's a social challenge, and ultimately is a human rights challenge. Additionally, I think that there is a tradition of seeing issues around children as being around charity rather than around rights, as if they don't themselves possess those rights which are enumerated in the convention and which are granted to them by virtue of them being born human.
Moore: One of the prominent NGOs working in the field is Childhood. Founded in 1999 by Queen Silvia of Sweden, it has given out almost 40 million in support of some of the most vulnerable children in the world. Project Manager Anna de Geer explains:
Anna de Geer: We make the children visible. Before we really see the children and the problems they really have we cannot help them, and we need to see them as early on as possible.
Moore: A beneficiary of Childhood called Half the Sky, started as a small group of adoptive parents concerned with the state of children's institutions in China. In 2005 Half the Sky was invited by the Chinese government to work on developing an initiative to set national guidelines for orphan care. Soon after, the Ministry of Civil Affairs published a document saying that nurture and education are as important as food, shelter, and medical care. Founder Jenny Bowen discusses the beginnings of Half the Sky.
Bowen: When I visited my very first orphanage on behalf of Half the Sky in the summer of '99 I had no idea things would come to this. Undaunted by the fact that I really didn't know for sure if the programs I imagined would work in an institutional setting, I was just so excited about the possibilities. Full of enthusiasm, I walked into a room that was lined with the chairs. It was the first of hundreds of those that I have seen since. Children tied or just obediently sitting staring into space, rows and rows of children, then cribs, dozens of them with little faces peeping out, at a time in their lives when most children are cherished, when every little smile is celebrated, this is how these children spent their days. I promised myself that day that if we would be allowed to try, Half the Sky would not focus on merely rescuing children, for how many could we save? We would focus instead on changing the system that does such things to children, and that is what we have done.
Moore: This year Half the Sky will open a model Blue Sky Children's Center and training facility in every province and municipality in China. Bowen urges organizations to continue working for the rights of children, especially those most vulnerable.
Moore: For United Nations Radio, I'm Chelsea Moore.
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