Minister of International Development and Human Rights: Hilde Frafjord Johnson

Children's rights: the road ahead

Concluding statement, 10th Anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Oslo City Hall, Saturday 20 November 1999.

Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen, Check against delivery

I met him at a school for orphans – a 16-year-old boy who was brave enough to answer my questions. Gradually the whole story came out. He had seen his parents murdered. The militia had invaded the village where he lived. The population had taken refuge in the church. Several thousand panic-stricken people were crammed into the building. They thought they would be safe. But the militia had slaughtered them, right there. The boy had ended up under a pile of bodies, pretending to be dead. He and a friend were the only ones left alive. They fled into the jungle and across the border. When it was all over, he returned to the village. There was no one left. His whole family was wiped out. (Only a distant uncle was still alive. . denne setning kunne kanskje kuttes? historien er ganske lang) Now it was up to him to carry on the family line. He stood there in his school uniform with hopeful eyes, on the threshold of a new life. Incredibly, he still had faith in the future? (vi har allerede sagt “hopeful eyes”)hope.

He was from Rwanda. From a village where one of the worst massacres had taken place. His eyes challenged me, then and there, just as all the other children like him challenge all of us here today.

And today – and sany other day – we should ask ourselves: Are we fulfilling our obligation to protect and nurture, to save, respect and care for children? Are we listening? Are we giving a voice to the next generation?

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It may be too early at the momenttoday to pass a final judgement on what - and how much - we have achieved in the first 10 years of the life of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. As stated by Carol Bellamy earlier today, “In terms of global development, ten years is just a wink”. In 2001 a special session at the UN will be taking stock of the experiences so far and charting the road ahead.

Still, much has been achieved in the short life of the Cconvention. In addition to progress on the ground, the adoption of the Convention has also inspired the strengthening of standards:

• An ILO convention to prevent the worst forms of child labour was adopted last June.
• Legal safeguards for inter-country adoptions have been ensured.
• The entry into force of the Mine Ban Convention may will hopefullylead to improved enhance protection of the many children exposed to the indiscriminate effects of landmines.
• The conscription or enlisting of children under the age of 15 into armed forces, and the use of those children for active participation in hostilities, have been defined as war crimes in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Moreover, the drafting of two important protocols - the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography and the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict - areconstitute initiatives to reinforce the Convention itself. We should all do our utmost to ensuresee to it that the drafting of these two protocols isbe brought to a successful conclusion.

But in spite of the efforts of so many governments, international organisations, agencies and NGOs, we cannot congratulate ourselves - we cannot rest on our laurels. Our achievements since the signing of the Convention - with or without new protocols - are by far outnumbered by the jobs that still remain to be done.

Consider this: In some countries 20 per cent of the children die of curable diseases before they reach the age of five. Millions of the children born when the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted are no longer with us. Evidently, the future prospects for children born in my country and in the least developed countries are dramatically different. To me, this disparity is totally and utterly unacceptable. It must be addressed. It must be corrected. The divide must be bridged, so that all children can enjoy all of their rights - whether given by God or by Man.

As practitioners and as policy makers we must continue to address the effects of poverty, deprivation and social exclusion on children. At the same time we must attend to the plight of refugee children, abandoned and street children, disabled children, child victims of conflict, children in danger from sexual exploitation and child labour. The list goes on.

Over the last hundred years mankind has witnessed an unprecedented acceleration in technological, economic and social development. World-wide there has been tremendous progress in terms of health and prosperity, not to mention knowledge. But the contrast between this affluence and our ability to solve the political, economic and environmental problems of this world is disturbing. Thirty per cent of the earth's population still has less than a dollar a day to live on. The last decade has seen no reduction in the number of poor.

The situation is especially tragic in Africa. Here, millions of children are not only mired in extreme poverty. They are also facing a future without educational opportunities and - with diseases like AIDS taking their toll - increasingly without one or even both parents. Add to that war and famine, and the picture becomes even bleaker.

By its very nature, poverty is a disabling condition. And children are the innocent and most vulnerable victims of poverty. This is why we must join forces to combat poverty. To replace a disabling environment with an enabling one. To help expand people’s choices, which - after all - is what development is all about. We, the international community, have a lots of moral obligations, and they weighing heavily upon our shoulders. This is one we cannot ignore. If all else fails, this is the one battle where we have to winsucceed.

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I remember a little boy I saw standing in line at a food station in southern Sudan. In 42 degrees of heat. A skinny little boy with matchstick legs, whose stomach was much too large. No one could tell how old he was. He stood there, patiently waiting to be fed, along with thousands of others, ragged and dirty. He gave me a big, warm smile. In the midst of all the hunger and disaster his dark eyes shone with such a determination to live – such a burning desire to be among the survivors. He had to survive. I hoped he would. I prayed he would.

We are beginning to understand more fully the importance of the right to development. Poverty in itself does not represent a human rights violation. Poverty, however, deprives people of their human rights - their right to life, to food, to education, to basic health services. In order to secure the human rights of children, combating poverty is therefore a must.

Children must have a standard of living that allows them to develop - physically, mentally, spiritually, morally and socially. One of the most important ways of ensuring this is by providing universal and equal access to primary education, for girls as well as for boys.

And we must not forget that children with disabilities - the weakest and the most marginalized of all - need our special attention. For them, we must walk an extra mile, turn an extra stone. Equally important, their needs must be integrated into our general policies in the health and education sector, not just as an add-on, but as a natural part of the whole. They mustn’t be, not just as an add-on, they must bebut as a natural part of the whole.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I need not remind you of some of the frightening aspects of internal conflict and strife, including the increasing use of civilians - and children - as instruments of war.

While civilians made up 5 per cent of the casualties in the First World War, the civilian victims of today's wars sometimes make up 80 to 90 per cent of the casualties. Civilians are being used as human shields. Children are being used to fight wars. Women and girls are being systematically raped and abused, as apart of military tactic. These practices form an all too familiar pattern in today's conflicts. Thousands of children are uprooted, become homeless and end up as refugees and internally displaced persons. These children suffer from fear and want and remain deprived of their right to a dignified proper childhood.

Violence hits the weakest groups the hardest. Children rank high on the lists of killed and injured in armed conflicts. Easy access to and widespread use of hand weapons have made it easier for both states and non-state actors to recruit and use children as soldiers. As we speak, three hundred thousand children are engaged in active warfare.

UNICEF's reports on children affected by armed conflict have branded war as a "vandalisation of childhood itself". Who could disagree with such a statement? - Children trapped and victimised by armed conflict is sheer human pain. Perhaps the true essence of human pain. Combating these atrocities - demobilising and rehabilitating child soldiers - is a moral imperative. Any and every use of child soldiers must be stopped. Vigorously. Urgently.

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Almost two years ago I visited Northern Uganda. There, at a rehabilitation centre run by Save the Children, I met children who had managed to escape from the Lord's Resistance Army. They were among the 10,000 children who are being kidnapped every year and forced to join the war as child soldiers. It was a painfully moving meeting. Boys as young as nine years of age and girls in their early teens told me stories of kidnapping, rape and abuse. Stories of how they were forced to attack and kill other children and people in their own villages. Stories of how they had to serve as "wives" for officers and soldiers. Through drawings they told horrific stories of the atrocities they were forced to commit, and forced to live through.

I especially remember the face of one of them - a girl who had been kidnapped at the age of twelve. She was forced not only to use a gun, but also to work as a servant and then as a sex slave for the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army. She was only sixteen, – “sweet sixteen” – yet already an old woman.

Again, I sincerely hope that the negotiations on the Optional Protocol relating to the protection of children from recruitment and participation in armed conflict will succeed.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Parents should work; children should go to school. Children belong in classrooms, not in crowded factories. For far too many children, this is nothing but a remote dream.

One of my first tasks when I was appointed Minister of International Development and Human Rights was to head an international conference on child labour that took place here in Oslo. The plan of action adopted at the conference was an important step forward in the struggle to stop child labour.

In the aftermath of that conference like-minded countries have come together in order to follow up on commitments undertaken. International assistance towards combating child labour has increased over the last few years. Still, not enough has been donethe action already undertaken leaves a lot to be desired. We must further increase our assistance in this field, whetherbe it through governments, NGOs or international organisations such as the ILO, UNICEF and the World Bank.

Child labour is both a cause and a consequence of poverty. Poor families are dependent on income from their children. The work, however, becomes a barrier to the children's education, which, in turn, is the family's greatest chancehope of for breaking out of the cycle of poverty.

Therefore, the most important measure against child labour is to make sure that children receive an education. Moreover - and this isas confirmed by numerous reports - the best economic investment any country can make is to invest in girls’ education. My Ggovernment is committed to increasing our contribution to education, to up to 15 per cent of our total development assistance. This is, thus going over and beyond the 10 per cent target in the so-called 20/20 initiative.

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Some of the most repugnant atrocities inflicted on children are the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. These are not only profoundly damaging; they represent gross violations of children's rights.

The reports presented by the Special Rapporteur in this area reveal a horrific reality. The sale of children for sexual purposes used to be considered the gravest threat to children's mental, moral and physical development. But recent reports on the sale of children for other purposes show that children are also being used as commodities in the field of adoption, as slave labourers, for criminal purposes, in forced marriage arrangements, as beggars – even in sports. And reports ofn the sale of children’s organs for transplantation continue to appall horrify us.

Seemingly, the outrageous exploitation and abuse of children knows no limits. And certainly, these practices must be brought to an end.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Those who are actually involved in protecting children and their rights are calling for action. Not for new policies. Notr for new documents. Policies alone will not solve children's problems. Words on paper will not free children from want or fear.

So wherein lies the ultimate answerchallenge? – I offer you three: 1) Action, 2) Action, and 3) Action. “Triple A”, if you wish. This is, of course, what it i’s all about. It’s that simple. And that complicated. We must direct more of our efforts towards applying the international norms and standards that we have agreed upon, towards complying with the Convention, or – to put it more simply – towards translating words into deeds. And we must do itthis now.

The Covention on the rights of the child remains - the treaty that has actually mobilised the highest number of ratifications ever. It is also by far the most rapidly ratified human rights covention in history. Yet, the results of the Convention are still regrettably thin on the ground. We must all join forces to correct this mismatch - to win this battle.

Let there be no doubt that Norway is ready to play its part in making the next century what UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has termed "the human rights century".

I predict that the rights of the child will gain momentum and increased focus in the international human rights debate. Children are the very measure of our respect for human rights. If we do not manage to protect children, who are the most vulnerable of groups and who represent our future, what does this say about us as politicians, citizens and parents? A human rights struggle that excludes children is at best incomplete - and at worst a travesty.

The persistence we have shown in seeking consensus on the promotion and protection of the rights of the child - one of the most important and crosscutting social issues of our time - is a reason to be optimistic about the future. Championing children’s rights gives us a unique opportunity for achieving unanimity of purpose on a global scale.

Children's rights are at the heart of the struggle for human dignity.
We must make a difference.
We must persevere.

The moral test of government
is how government treats those
who are in the dawn of life.

Thank you.