[child-rights] Special Session Update No. 3

SPECIAL SESSION UPDATE NO. 3 * THURSDAY 9 MAY 2002

NGOs working together for the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children

US SLAMS GOVERNMENTS FOR 'INCREDIBLY DISAPPOINTING DRAFT DECLARATION?

A powerful defence of the United States? position in the Special Session negotiations was given yesterday by Michael Dennis of the State Department, who accused other governments of watering down the ?incredibly disappointing? draft conference declaration.

?Unfortunately, many states are more interested in protecting their own national priorities than in the general welfare of children,? he told a briefing for US non-government organisations.

Describing the US as a  global leader in child protection, he said that his government had promoted a number of specific recommendations during the Special Session negotiations, such as limiting the role of children in armed conflict, but other delegates had favoured generalisations.

?Every proposal we put on the table was rejected,? he said. ?It [the draft declaration] is down to the lowest common denominator,? he commented.

Categorically refuting allegations that President George Bush?s Washington had retreated from positions adopted by the Ronald Reagan Administration, Dennis said it was other governments that had moved away, not the US. 

These countries insisted on talking only about child rights in the context of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was detrimental to children?s interests because the Convention was weak in certain areas, such as trafficking, prostitution, the sale of children and pornography. The US had taken a lead in adopting protocols covering these areas, whereas European countries had weaker laws and therefore favoured the generalised language of the Convention.

The Convention was an important standard for legislation on the rights of the child, he said, but the US would not accept it as the only one. The US probably had the best child protection laws in the world, he emphasised.


LATE-NIGHT LOBBYISTS PUT THEIR CARDS ON THE TABLE

At about 11.30 last night Carol Bellamy took the elevator down to the lobby in UNICEF headquarters (where negotiations to secure conference consensus had been underway for hours), and was faced by two rival lobbying groups. ?We are trying to ensure that governments advance on agreements that have been supporting young people and adolescents? sexual and reproductive health and rights,? said Jennifer Curran of the Youth Coalition, referring to agreements reached at the International Conference on Population and Development. Her organisation - some of whose members were whiling away the time by playing cards and Clue - is part of the International Sexual and Reproductive Rights Coalition, which organised the vigil because of concern that the Special Session might retreat from previous international commitments.

A few metres away, an ultra-conservative group were handing tired delegates flyers claiming that ?UNICEF curriculum states that reproductive health includes abortion? and ?UNICEF sex education promotes homosexuality and bestiality.?

Pointing at the other group, Curran said, ?We?re basically trying to keep an eye on them.?


TEXT RESERVATIONS COULD SAVE THE CONFERENCE, SAYS SENATOR

Major areas of disagreement at the conference could be bridged by a simple device, according to US Senator Timothy E. Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, who has been involved in several similar conference negotiations.

At a briefing yesterday he identified the three unresolved issues as: 

* language related to rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention had been negotiated without dissent but later became incorrectly defined ?in certain quarters? as asserting children?s rights at the expense of the rights, roles and responsibilities of parents.

* language relating to reproductive health services. Some critics had claimed, incorrectly, that the text might encourage abortion. 

* provision of sex education and reproductive health services for adolescents. Some delegations favoured an ?abstinence-only? approach, while others believed that a comprehensive approach that included abstinence made more sense.

Wirth recalled the pragmatism of the Holy See at the 1994 population and development conference. Its delegation was troubled by a few words and phrases: ?Rather than block consensus on the text and bring down the entire conference, the Holy See signed on to the Programme of Action, but expressed several reservations on certain paragraphs.?

This, he suggested, was a viable option for the handful of countries at the Special Session who found certain parts of the text objectionable but wanted the conference to be successful.

He also said that experience showed that strong reaffirmation of each nation?s sovereign rights went a long way to resolving disputes. The conference declaration was a loose and general agreement, which it was up to individual governments to interpret. 
 

A WORLD FIT FOR US

? We pledge an equal partnership in this fight for children's rights. And while we promise to support the actions you take on behalf of children, we also ask for your commitment and support in the actions we are taking - because the children of the world are misunderstood. 

We are not the sources of problems; we are the resources that are needed to solve them. 
We are not expenses; we are investments. 
We are not just young people; we are people and citizens of this world. 

Until others accept their responsibility to us, we will fight for our rights. We have the will, the knowledge, the sensitivity and the dedication. We promise that as adults we will defend children's rights with the same passion that we have now as children. 
We promise to treat each other with dignity and respect. We promise to be open and 
sensitive to our differences. 

We are the children of the world, and despite our different backgrounds, we share a common reality. 
We are united by our struggle to make the world a better place for all. 
You call us the future, but we are also the present. 

>From ?A World Fit for Us?, message from the Children?s Forum Message. Meeting of Under-18 Delegates to the United Nations Special Session on Children. For the complete declaration go to: http://www.un.org/ga/children/cfmE.htm 


NGO INFILTRATION

During a meeting of the small negotiating group trying to sort out remaining textual differences in the conference declaration yesterday, the group?s coordinator, Ambassador Hanns Schumacher was asked a series of questions about possible procedures for securing agreement. He patiently and carefully replied to the questions, before inquiring which country the questioner represented. At that moment, his interrogator ? the head of an NGO - realised she was in the wrong meeting, which was restricted to government delegates. Schumacher accepted her embarrassed apologies and said the questions had been very pertinent.

Before the unveiling of the unwitting intruder, Schumacher told delegates he hoped that he would be able to announce to the plenary on Thursday morning how the discussions could be moved forward to enable completion of  A World Fit For Children.


IN BRIEF

* Visas for all members of the Iraqi delegation to the Special Session were refused by the US government. UNICEF said yesterday that there had been no other serious refusals.

* ?For the first time in the history of the UN they [children] are being heard? - UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy.

* 'We've gained from today,' said Tom Burke, an Under-18 delegate. But he hopes next that adults will come to realise that 'child participation' is more than a tool.

* Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressed his opening remarks directly to the children of the world, saying ?You have a right to live a live a safe life from the threat of war, abuse and exploitation?These rights are obvious,? he said. ?Yet we, the grown-ups have failed you deplorably in upholding many of them.?

* ?We have 10-15 years to see if they have been listening? - child delegate Audrey Cheynut on being asked whether she thought governments would live up to their pledges on children.

* ?You call us the future, but we are also the present? - declaration by the Children?s Forum, A World Fit For Us.

* ?We had only three minutes to present our views to the General Assembly? - Children?s Forum participant Alex Rosu, asked for his criticisms of the arrangements for children?s participation.  

* ?We must get the world moving, literally,? Tommy Thompson, US Secretary of Health and Human Services, told the Special Session. He was commenting on the World Health Organization?s decision to make physical activity and fitness its priority for the year. It is particularly a problem in the US, he admitted, where the number of overweight children has tripled in the past two decades.

* Invited to comment on a rumour that Washington was pressing UNICEF to reduce references to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in all its documents, Jo Becker of the Child Rights Caucus looked surprised and said she had heard nothing of the kind, before adding, ?It would be appalling.?




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