Towards a better world for children
20 November is the #WorldChildrensDay adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.
Today's world celebrates, and violations of the rights of children in the world are on the rise, as are wars and armed conflicts, widespread poverty, ignorance, disease and climate change. It is indeed regrettable that this day and news channels are coming back.
According to the figures, the poor conditions experienced by an alarming number of children in the world compared to previous generations, which is contrary to the high aspirations for child protection and global progress in the area of children's rights. Around 50 million children have emigrated across borders or have been forcibly displaced around the world, including more than 10 million child refugees, 1 million asylum-seeking child, 20 million migrant children who have crossed international borders, an estimated 17 million internally displaced children due to conflict and violence and more than 300 thousand unaccompanied and separated children, and that children currently make up half of all the world's refugees.
The figures announced by #UNICEF on World Children's Day foreshadow the real crisis that children are experiencing today and indicate that more than 27 million children are at risk from devastating floods. Nearly 580 children have been killed since the beginning of the current year due to conflicts and violence in the Middle East and North Africa region and only a third of the world's 10-year-olds are able to read and understand a simple story, 6.9 million out-of-classroom pupils and 12 million others face problems related to education instability due to teacher shortages, poor infrastructure and a weak school environment in Sudan. More than 2 million children are not attending school in Yemen, and 356 million are living in extreme poverty before the coronavirus pandemic.
These figures impose on the international community a higher sense of responsibility to protect children by providing the right to life, education and living in dignity in accordance with international human rights instruments and conventions.
The Geneva Institute for Human Rights calls on all States around the world to:
- ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the three Optional Protocols thereto, withdraw reservations to the Convention and fulfil the obligations imposed by these instruments; through, inter alia, awareness-raising campaigns and all forms of communication, such as the media, targeted interventions to sensitize rural and remote populations and vulnerable groups of society.
- take all necessary measures to ensure that child-friendly versions of the Convention are available in local languages and to expedite the establishment of a children's parliament and an ombudsman for children and to include the prevention of acts of sexual exploitation and abuse, child marriage, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation, violence against children, including sexual and gender-based violence. Protection against such acts is at the heart of responses in emergency and humanitarian situations and addressing the underlying factors that make children, especially girls, particularly vulnerable to such practices and to fully investigate all cases of the use of children in political demonstrations and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice and that adequate reparation and compensation are provided to victims;
The Geneva Institute for Human Rights calls on all to translate the vision of the Convention on the Rights of the Child into reality for children everywhere, through innovations, new techniques, political will, uniting the human conscience on children's issues and concerted efforts to protect them and provide the livelihoods that protect them from frustration and despair due to the loss of protection.
Geneva 20 November 2022