Battle over Children’s rights at the United Nations Special Session on Children

The 10-year review of the 1990 World Summit for Children was held at United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York, May 8 to 10, 2002. The two objectives of the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children were to review the progress made in the welfare of children since the 1990 World Summit, and to review the progress made in child welfare since the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.

More than 60 heads of state and governments, 250 parliamentarians, 700 nongovernmental organizations, and hundreds of children came together to chart a course for the future well-being of children, including adolescents. Deputy Prime Minister John Manley led the Canadian delegation.

To be sure, there were many successes. To begin with, the level of youth participation was unprecedented. For the first time, young people — more than 350 of them — attended a UN conference as participating delegates. Children and youth were everywhere throughout the Session — chairing meetings, questioning their leaders, and speaking loudly and clearly about the realities of their lives.

The Special Session resulted in an outcome document, A World fit for Children (1), which sets the direction for international policy with respect to children for the next decade. This document is quite strong around several issues, including child protection, indigenous rights, education, disability and the sexual exploitation of children. References to the importance of youth participation in the final outcome document were also a step forward. Senator Landon Pearson states about the final document, “most of the text…is positive, forward-looking and useful” (1).

BATTLE OVER ‘CHILDREN’S RIGHTS’ AND ‘REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS’

However, there were also many disappointments at the Children’s Session. The major and hotly contested debates taking centre stage during the negotiations were around two areas: children’s rights; and how to address the rights of adolescents to sexual and reproductive health information, education and services.

During negotiations, the American delegation fiercely opposed including references to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in the outcome document. Every country of the world except for the United States and Somalia has ratified the CRC (Somalia has signed the treaty and announced during the Special Session that it intends to ratify it soon). Several countries and a host of children’s advocacy groups argued that the CRC should be placed at the centre of any international action plan emerging from the Children’s Summit.

The Convention, which includes the economic, cultural, social, political and civil rights of children, is the international benchmark for legal norms for the protection and well-being of children. Governments of diverse economic, geographical, religious and cultural backgrounds have used the CRC to advance children’s rights over the past 12 years. Unfortunately, however, instead of making the Convention the centrepiece of the outcome document, American opposition resulted in very limited references to the CRC.

The Bush Administration also used its position as the last remaining superpower to try to strong-arm the international community into accepting its conservative moralistic views on sexual and reproductive health. Throughout negotiations, the Bush Administration promoted abstinence as the primary strategy to prevent unintended pregnancies and HIV/AIDS. Since 1995, the world’s governments have agreed five times that health services and comprehensive sexuality education must be provided to young people, recognizing that evaluations demonstrate that such programs work. While abstinence is one way to avoid pregnancy and sex-related infections, it will not help the vast numbers of young people around the world who, willingly or not, become sexually active during their adolescent years.

…the Bush Administration was more concerned with pandering to its right-wing constituency than building an international program for children. This unilateralism has been a hallmark of the Bush Administration when it comes to multilateral initiatives — landmines, global warming, nuclear non proliferation, small arms, international criminal court — and there was no reason to believe the Americans would act differently when it came to children. They staked out their position on reproductive health and the Convention, sat back and watched the other side fall apart. (2)

In the end, the Bush Administration could not secure the inclusion of language promoting abstinence-only sexual education. They did manage to expunge all references to ‘reproductive health services’ from the text. The Bush Administration argued that the phrase ‘reproductive health services’ connotes abortion, and sought to remove this phrase or to exclude abortion explicitly. At international conferences in the past, it was agreed that abortion is included as part of ‘reproductive health care’ but makes it perfectly plain that this is in circumstances where abortion is not against the law. Delegates from other nations, including those from predominantly Roman Catholic Latin American countries, opposed the United States’ effort to limit what other countries can offer as part of a wide range of reproductive health services. Although the final document does not have strong statements on adolescent reproductive rights, it does clearly reaffirm agreements reached over the past eight years that richly detail adolescents’ rights to sexual and reproductive health information and services.

In addition to the weak language adopted with respect to the CRC and adolescent reproductive rights, important language with respect to development assistance, humanitarian aid, child labour and the environment was also either dropped or weakened during the final negotiations (3).

CANADA’S POSITION

The Canadian delegation was admirable in its defense of children’s rights. Canadian negotiators worked diligently to secure rights-based language within the outcome document, including language protecting adolescent sexual and reproductive health.

As well, at the closing of the Special Session, Mr Gilbert Laurin, representing Canada as the Minister Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Canada to the UN, made the following powerful official statement registering Canada’s dissatisfaction with the debate on the issue of sexual and reproductive health.

This is a critical issue to the health, survival and well-being of children and adolescents around the world. This document falls significantly short. . . . It is regrettable that attempts were made during the negotiations to retrench on previously agreed and longstanding language. We therefore stress that the outcomes of Cairo, Beijing and other conferences and their reviews will continue to serve as benchmarks for future action.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE WORLD’S CHILDREN?

After all the negotiations, governments of the world have agreed on a plan of action to improve the lives of children everywhere. The outcome document, A World Fit for Children (1), commits heads of state and government to achieving a set of targets for children by 2010.

This document has a detailed Plan of Action addressing four major areas: promoting healthy lives; providing quality education; protecting against abuse, exploitation and violence; and combating HIV/AIDS. It outlines how to create a world fit for children through specific goals, strategies and actions, the mobilization of resources, and follow-up actions and assessment.

Governments have much work to do — also, any group or individual concerned about the children of the world can use this document as an advocacy tool to hold governments to account for the promises made at the Special Session. This political tool can be used right here in Canada to benefit the lives of children.

The world owes it to children to uphold the promises, pledges and commitments that have been made to children and to display them publicly.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

For an official copy of the final version of the outcome document, visit the UNICEF Web site: <http://www.unicef.org/media/outcomedocument.htm>.

The Web site of the NGO Committee on UNICEF (which brings together over 100 NGOs that are working for children) is available at <http://www.ngosatunicef.org/>.

Web site of Senator Landon Pearson, Personal Representative of the Prime Minister to the UN Special Session on Children: <http://sen.parl.gc.ca/lpearson>.