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Summary: 3 May 2002 - Being a child can be no
fun these days. According to UNICEF,
1.4m children under 15 are living
with HIV, and 13m have been
orphaned by AIDS. Between 1990
and 2000, conflict killed 2m children.
Over 100m of primary age do not
attend school, while 149m are
malnourished.
Oh, and Somalia too
America’s almost solitary refusal to do the decent thing
Being a child can be no fun these days. According to UNICEF,
1.4m children under 15 are living with HIV, and 13m have been
orphaned by AIDS. Between 1990 and 2000, conflict killed 2m
children. Over 100m of primary age do not attend school, while
149m are malnourished. At the 1990 world summit for children,
national leaders pledged to improve matters. On May 8th-10th,
the UN General Assembly will hold a special session on children to
discuss what still needs to be done. The United States, as ever,
is not in the mood to give the UN an easy ride.
Besides the now familiar bickering over family planning and
abortion, discussions ahead of the session are snagging on the
1989 UN convention for the rights of the child. The convention -
which sets standards for health care, education, social services
and so on – is supported by all but two countries, the United
States and Somalia. The Clinton administration signed the
documents in 1995, but it was never sent to Congress for
ratification. And American negotiators have no intention of letting
the rest of the world use the convention as a centrepiece for the
special session.
Why the fuss? To begin with, convention members are not
supposed to execute children. In America, however, 23 states
allow the death penalty for people who were under 18 at the
time of their crimes. Since 1985, 18 child offenders have been
executed – half of them in Texas – and another 84 were on death
row in November 2001. If it ratified the convention, America
would be under pressure to give up this practice.
Another issue is whether children should be listened to. The
treaty’s opponents – who found a vocal advocate in Jesse Helms,
the senior senator from North Carolina – maintain that the
convention, which argues that children’s views should be taken
into account, undermines parental authority. Some have
nightmarish visions of ungrateful brats suing their parents and of
UN bureaucrats, in effect, taking over family life.
According to Howard Davidson of the American Bar Association,
this is nonsense. The convention, he says, offers no basis for
legal action, and children from the 191 countries that are part of
the convention are not dragging their parents to court. In any
case, adds Jo Becker of Human Rights Watch, the treaty, while
outlining children’s rights, clearly promotes the central role of
parents and families.
Deep hostility to the UN in general also shapes America’s
attitude. According to Janice Crouse from Concerned Women for
America, a conservative women’s group, the international body is
meddling far too much. Ms Crouse points out that American
children are already protected by American laws, which are fine,
and that the convention would only undercut national
sovereignty.
Lawmakers, however, may feel differently. The convention’s
associated protocols – which condemn the use of child soldiers as
well as child prostitution and pornography – are likely to be
ratified by the Senate in the next few weeks. In the meantime,
however, the convention itself is still sitting in the White House. It
took over 30 years for the United States to ratify the genocide
convention. Will children have to wait that long?
The Economist, Volume 363 Number 8271
Association: The Economist