A Child's Life

November 20 marks the 25th anniversary of the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 55th anniversary of its Declaration of the Rights of the Child. This country signed but has not ratified the Convention, which puts it on a short list whose only other member is Somalia. The Convention is an international treaty that lays out the minimum standards for the protection of children's social, economic, political, health, civil, and cultural rights ("child" being any human being under age 18, unless a country's own legislation defines it otherwise). The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child oversees compliance and submits a report once a year to the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly. Of course, membership doesn't necessarily equal protection of children and their rights, as witnessed by the horrifying numbers behind child soldiers (an estimated 250,000 today, according to the London-based War Child), refugees (the UNHCR says that, in 2012, 46 percent, or about 20 million, of the world's refugee population are children), slaves (approximately 26 percent, or 7,750,000 are children, according to the Borgen Project), and prostitutes (World Vision estimates 10 million children worldwide): http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CRC/Pages/CRCIntro.aspx and http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/humanrights/resources/child.asp
   Why hasn't the U.S. ratified yet? A couple of reasons, according to Human Rights Watch. One is that ratification is a slow process in this country, and the other is that certain groups are opposed to it: http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/11/18/qa-convention-rights-child#_Why_hasn%27t_the
   Here's what a group called Parental Rights has to say: "This treaty poses a serious threat both to parental rights and to U.S. sovereignty, as the UNCRC dictates not only that the federal government must intrude into the family sphere to an unprecedented degree, but also how the federal government is to monitor and govern the actions of our families. Parental rights would be replaced by 'the best interests of the child' as defined, ultimately, by an international committee of 18 people in Switzerland." Parental Rights was founded by constitutional lawyer, Baptist minister, and father of 10 Michael P. Farris, who also founded Patrick Henry College, "a Christian institution with the mission of training students ... to impact the world 'for Christ and for Liberty' ": http://www.parentalrights.org/index.asp?SEC={98172987-5D33-4A41-AF04-84F6726222C3}