World Children’s Day 2023: a plea to upholding children’s rights
Yesterday marked World Children’s day, an annual event that works to raise awareness for the importance of children’s wellbeing and advocates for their voices to be heard.
Founded in 1945, World Children’s Day was established to raise awareness for the rights of kids to be taken seriously. The event is UNICEF’s day of action to reiterate the contents of the United Nations convention on the Rights of the Child, which is a legally-binding international agreement that was created in 1989 to outline the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of every child, regardless of their race, religion or abilities.
However, although the agreement is noted to be the most complete statement of children’s rights ever produced, every year authorities across the globe work to ensure the rights of young people are considered.
For example, to commemorate the event this year, England’s Children’s Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, highlighted that she recently launched The Big Ambition – a survey for children and young people which aims to hear what they want to change in the lead up to the general election.
‘The fact that some adults don’t believe in children’s rights, and we have those rights, so we need the government to speak about rights for kids so that we have a life of some sort of freedom,’ said one boy, aged 10, in the survey. ‘And that we have respect for adults so adults should have at least some respect for kids around the world.’
Despite England’s progression to ensure children’s thoughts and opinions are heard in parliament, the United Nations have claimed that over the past few years it has become increasingly evident that a vast number of children remain daily victims of violence, abuse, and oppression.
In 2022 the United Nations verified 27,180 violations affecting 18,890 children. The most prevalent violation to surface last year was the killing and maiming of children, while the number of attacks on schools and hospitals showed an unprecedented increase of 112% compared to the previous year.
Against this backdrop, figures uncovered this year are just as, if not more sobering than those found in 2022. The harrowing war that is currently happening between Israel and Palestine has resulted in more than 5,500 children’s deaths in Gaza and more than 9,000 kids have been maimed by airstrikes. In addition, the majority of children in Palestine are also being denied access to basic human rights including food, water, and medicine.
As well as horrific battle-plagued environments tragically affecting children’s lives, other push factors such as the effects of climate change and the rise of pandemics have led to a general impoverishment of communities and have forced children to join armed groups and/or face sexual violence. One example of this is in Haiti, armed gangs are increasingly targeting young people and committing all six grave violations against children whilst doing so.
The six violations against children are child recruitment and use; killing and maiming; abductions; rape and other forms of sexual violence; attacks on schools and hospitals; and the denial of humanitarian access.
The special representative of the secretary general of the United Nations for Children and Armed Conflict, Ms Virginia Gamba, said: ‘Without the political will to genuinely resolve conflicts, we will continue to fail our children and their hopes and dreams. Without respecting the obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, we will continue to harm our children.’
The United Nations for Children and Armed Conflict have said that this year there is ‘noting to celebrate’ on World Children’s Day ‘but simply acknowledge a lingering sense of regret and shame.’
Images: Joel Muniz and SutoriMedia
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