CIAO DATE: 08/04

UN Holds Special Session on Children

The United Nations held a Special Session on Children on May 8–10, 2002. Originally scheduled for September 19–21, the three days marked the first time the General Assembly devoted a session exclusively to children and children’s issues.

The Special Session was a follow–up to the 1990 World Summit for Children and was meant to examine the implementation of the Summit’s goals and agenda. At the World Summit, 71 government leaders signed the World Declaration on Survival, Protection, and Development of Children and adopted a plan of action with goals including: “improving living conditions for children and their chances for survival by increasing access to health services for women and children, reducing the spread of preventable diseases, creating more opportunities for education, providing better sanitation and greater food supply, and protecting children in danger.”

At the Special Session, states adopted a plan of action, known as “A World Fit for Children.” The document contains 21 goals for child protection in four primary areas: promoting healthy lives; access to and completion of quality education; protection of children against abuse, violence and exploitation; and fighting HIV/AIDS.

As with many other recent multilateral initiatives, especially those held within a UN context or the UN system, the United States managed to alienate itself from the majority of its allies and found itself allied with unlikely bedfellows, including Iraq, Sudan, and Syria on some positions. In particular, the United States is one of only two UN countries, the other is Somalia, to not have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the most comprehensive children’s rights treaty in existence. As such, the United States did not want language included in the Session’s final document that referred to a country’s performance on protecting the rights and needs of children based upon the CRC standards. The United States also did not want a provision in the outcome document that prohibited the death penalty or life imprisonment for individuals under 18, as the United States is one of the few countries that continue to execute children for their crimes. Another fight that emerged during the conference was over references to reproductive health services. The United States did not want to include abortion in the list of reproductive health services offered to adolescents, even though the same language had been adopted at five previous UN conferences.

While UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy was “enormously proud and pleased at what has been accomplished” during the Special Session, many NGOs and child delegates left the meetings disappointed, believing the final document did not take the agenda far enough. Moreover, as with many other UN events, there was a lot of talk and political posturing, but few specifics as to how such protections would be provided for and funded. Further, the Special Session did little to further the legal protections guaranteed children, merely reaffirming the existing rights of children.

Joining the more than 60 heads of state and countless diplomats, and over 3,000 non–governmental organization representatives in the Special Session, were 400–plus children. Because it was a conference about children, the child delegates were given an opportunity to present their plan of action, “A World Fit for Us,” to world leaders. In panels with youth and government leaders, the tone was often somewhat contentious. A 15–year old boy from Mali, Adam Maiga, said at one panel, “We must put an end to this demagoguery. You have parliaments but they are used as democratic decorations.” Another 17–year old from Chad urged the government leaders to “Listen to the children not with your ears, but with your heart.” The challenge for the United Nations and government leaders is now to implement the commitments made in “A World Fit for Children” in a timely and effective manner.