Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Africa Water, Sanitation Jan -Feb 2014 Vol.10 No1 | Page 17

Children’s Rights

In Retrospect

25 Years after Rights Convention, Children Still Need
More Protection
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 14 2014
By Susan Bissell Edited by Kitty Stapp

N

ext week marks 25 years since the adoption of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, a historic
commitment to children and the most widely accepted
human rights treaty in history.
The CRC outlines universal rights for all children,
including the right to health care, education, protection
and the time and space to play. And it changed the way
children are viewed, from objects that need care and
charity, to human beings, with a distinct set of rights and
with their own voices that deserve to be heard.
Fresh in my mind right now are deadly bomb attacks on
schools in northern Nigeria and Syria, Central American
children braving perilous journeys to flee violence,
children being recruited to fight in South Sudan and gang
rapes in India.
My career with UNICEF began the same year the CRC
was adopted, and I have seen profound progress in
children’s lives. Since 1989 the number of children who die
before their fifth birthday has been reduced by nearly half.
Pregnant women are far more likely to receive antenatal
care and a significantly higher proportion of children now
go to school and have clean water to drink.
We must celebrate these important achievements.
But this anniversary must also be used to critically examine
areas of children’s lives that have seen far less progress
and acknowledge that millions of children have their
fundamental rights violated every day.
These crises and events are stunning in their scope and
depravity, and in the depth of suffering our children
endure. As upsetting as they are, they play out alongside
acts of violence against children that happen everywhere
and every day.
Twenty-five years after the adoption of the CRC, we
clearly must do more to protect our children.
Our children endure a cacophony of violence too often in
silence, and too often under an unspoken assumption that
violence against children is to some degree tolerable.
Our children endure it in spite of overwhelming scientific
evidence of the long-lasting physical, psychological,
emotional, and social