Submitted by crinadmin on
Summary: UNITED NATIONS, May 10 - After
nearly 30 hours of bitter, nonstop
negotiations over teenagers and
sex, delegates to the United Nations
General Assembly Special Session on
Children tentatively agreed tonight
on a declaration of goals.
Goals Set by U.N. Conference on Children Skirt Abortion
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
UNITED NATIONS, May 10 - After nearly 30 hours of bitter,
nonstop negotiations over teenagers and sex, delegates to the
United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children
tentatively agreed tonight on a declaration of goals.
The Bush administration and its allies from the Vatican and some
Islamic countries failed in their bid to get an explicit policy against
making abortion available to teenagers. Nor did it manage to
make abstinence for unmarried teenagers the centerpiece of sex
education.
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Those pressing for a family to be defined as a married man and
woman lost in their efforts as well. The United States did win in
its attempts to play down the importance of the Convention on
the Rights of the Child, a landmark 1989 treaty that the United
States has not ratified.
A ban on executing criminals under 18 - something the European
Union had backed, against the wishes of the America delegation -
did not make it either. As a result, the declaration does not oblige
any country to abolish capital punishment for juveniles, a practice
allowed by nearly half of all American states.
``Those issues that were polemical until the end were settled in
a package,'' said Dirk Rotenberg, a spokesman for the German
mission to the United Nations. The Germans chaired the
negotations over the document. ``We can deliver to the children,
and we are proud of that.''
The most fractious debates during the three-day session
concerned the use of the term ``reproductive health services.''
That language did not endorse abortion as a family planning
method, but declared that abortions ought to be safe in countries
where they are legal.
The Bush administration argued that the phrase connotes
abortion. They sought to remove it or amend it to exclude
abortion explicitly.
Delegates from other nations, including those from predominantly
Roman Catholic Latin American countries, had opposed the United
States' efforts to limit what other countries can offer as part of a
menu of reproductive health services.
Tonight, the Bush administration achieved partial victory. The
term ``reproductive health services'' was expunged from the
document, but it contained document no specific proscriptions.
A United States official said the compromise language needed no
annotations on abortion. ``The language is general enough so it
doesn't suggest that abortion is appropriate for children,'' the
official said. ``We have a consensus document that meets U.S.
concerns.''
Among advocates who had assailed the Bush administration all
week for trying to water down language that world leaders had
already agreed to, relief mixed with disenchantment this evening.
``With respect to child rights and adolescent health and
reproductive rights it is an extremely weak document,'' said
Adrienne Germain, president of the International Women's Health
Coalition. ``It won't hurt anything. But we lost an opportunity
here.''
Several countries and a host of children's advocacy groups had
hoped the final document would rely on the Convention on the
Rights of the Child as the legal standard for children's rights. But
the language agreed upon offered the treaty no special status.
``The Convention itself has just been sidelined,'' said Jo Becker
of Human Rights Watch.
The United States is one of two countries that have yet to ratify
the children's convention. Somalia, the other holdout, signed the
convention earlier in the week, and is expected to ratify it. The
United States has opposed the treaty, in part because it
condemns the use of capital punishment against minors.
Critics assailed the Bush administration for stalling negotiations
on the document. The American delegation's attempts to have
what an American official called a frank conversation with non-
governmental organizations did not seem to aid the
government's cause.
Holding aloft neon pink signs reading ``Shame,'' representatives
of non-governmental groups that advocate sex education for
teens, spilled out of the meeting, fuming. Reporters were barred
from the meeting.
Advocates from around the world said they feared that the weak
language in the conference document would hinder their efforts
to force their own governments to pass laws and invest in
programs, from sex education in the schools to money for health
clinics that teach kids how to steer clear of H.I.V. Half of all new
H.I.V. infections in the world are among youngsters.
Association: New York Times