[health-vn] WORLD APPEAL TO A NEW MOBILIZATION FOR CHILDHOOD from the International Catholic Child Bureau (Bice)]

[Vern Weitzel]

Subject: 	Fwd: WORLD APPEAL TO A NEW MOBILIZATION FOR CHILDHOOD
from the  International Catholic Child Bureau (Bice)
Date: 	Wed, 13 May 2009 13:05:24 +0700
From: 	Antonia Luedeke <antonia.luedeke at gmail.com>


WORLD APPEAL TO A NEW MOBILIZATION FOR CHILDHOOD

20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child

“The mankind owes the child the best that it has to give” Eglantyne
Jebb Geneva Declaration 1924


1. On the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the
Rights of the Child by the UN General Assembly we, the signatories of
the following document1 launch with gravity an urgent Appeal to a new
mobilization for childhood2.

2. The Convention has marked a historic moment. It has generated a new
vision of the child3. Since its promulgation and its almost universal
ratification, children must be considered fully as human beings, true
right-holders, entitled to enjoy human rights in an inalienable way
and without discrimination. At the same time, because they are fragile
and growing, they need protection.

3. According to the Appeal’s signatory organizations, experts, and
personalities, the translation of the provisions contained in the
Convention into domestic laws and into implemented policies have
allowed real progress.

4. Unfortunately, subscribed engagements are still very far from being
respected worldwide. Too often, children continue to be viewed as
objects of assistance, or as beneficiaries of certain rights that they
receive as charity. Around the world, too many children are deprived
of their rights, sometimes even the most fundamental ones.

5. Child soldiers, children working in hazardous and dangerous
conditions, children abused, raped, objects of all forms of violence,
children obliged to flee incessantly away with or without their family
due to wars, famines, natural disasters, children abandoned and
rejected by all, forced to live in the street, “sorcerers” children,
without education, without a country, with no papers…

6. Children, who are even more vulnerable due to families becoming
fragile, massive urbanization, environmental degradation,
globalization that deepens inequalities. Moreover, nowadays, a
wide-spreading economic crisis at the planet level increases threats
on millions of them.

It is urgent to act.



7. All these children have something in common: they have been
uprooted. Physical uprooting, sometimes brutal, from their country or
the place they were supposed to grow up; but also psychosocial
uprooting - more intimate - causing an even deeper choc when they are
not loved, not listened to, when they live at the margin of a family
or the society, when they are no more part of a continuum, heir of a
human community attached to its culture and history. These children
are uprooted from an indispensable human living space, the possibility
to grow-up stably in an affectionate and truly respectful environment.

8. This uprooting must seriously question us; it must be better
understood, better studied in its causes and grave consequences for
present and future humanity.

9. Such situations are neither exceptional nor reserved to such or
such a country. Worldwide, millions of children live the dramatic loss
of landmarks, which inevitably ends up in denying their rights.

10. We propose to adopt a renewed approach of the child based on
his/her deeper needs as well as on his/her right to life and to an
integral development, including in its spiritual dimension.

11. Despite the somber reality of uprooted children, we are often
surprised: some children manifest vitality and some energy enabling
them to resist, stand up again and overcome in a positive way the
grave challenges that life carries with it. We call this capacity,
which is inside them resilience. Resilience also increases their
chances to have their rights respected because it empowers children to
fight for them.

12. To bring all its fruits, resilience gains in being developed and
supported by different elements:

- The insertion in a genuine family and community caring environment,
which is also perceived by the child as such.

- Quality education both at school and within families and
communities.

- Being part of an even very modestly self-sufficient family.

- A true solidarity experienced domestically and in the community,
which opens children to generosity and to the hope of always finding
somebody who will be able to help them.

13. The respect and the promotion of the cultural background also
provide indispensable landmarks so that children can structure
themselves and positively accede to other cultures. Their life becomes
meaningful. The religious dimension that children may have received
earlier must be preserved and developed while respecting their freedom
-as it constitutes a deep resource during their life.

14.  It is also desirable to favor children’s participation, their
responsibilities, their duties, their solidarity; they become, then,
protagonists of their life; contribute efficiently in evolving adults’
traditional behaviors and are the best child-rights ambassadors to
their peers.

15. Such an approach directly associates children to the promotion and
the defense of their rights. Wherever we have been able to put it into
practice, it has showed us its efficiency.

16. This new approach of the child calls upon our mobilization
especially on some issues. Among the ten issues that we have
identified4, we would like to highlight specifically:

- To fight against all forms of violence against children should it be
extreme poverty or violence during armed conflicts, at school, in the
work place, in the cyberspace or domestically; it is indeed within
families where violence is mostly widespread.

- To guarantee quality education for all children so that they are not
condemned to perpetual poverty and marginalization. In particular, we
have experimented that the intervention of educators-mediators capable
to help uprooted children to move gradually towards new cultural
references by rising and supporting their resilience, favors their
insertion and their development, and allows fighting efficiently
against early school leaving.

- To support weakened families, namely monoparental families, in order
to promote inside them a climate of well-being and strengthen parental
educational capabilities.

- To humanize juvenile justice and the assistance to young people in
conflict with the law. Confronted with the intensification of criminal
laws in many countries, we would like to recall that juvenile justice
must primarily aim at education and reintegration.

17. We need to implement in an effective and urgent manner what is
required by international human rights treaties and more specifically
by the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

18. We, the signatories of this document urge States to:

a) Ratify, for those who have not yet done so, the Convention as well
as the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution
and child pornography and the Optional Protocol on the involvement of
children in armed conflicts, withdraw reservations and pursue the
harmonization of domestic law with the Convention.

b) Respect undertaken commitments, namely by adopting public policies
for children and families, which additionally presuppose priority and
sufficient budgetary allocations as well as a firm political will.

c) Cooperate fully with the Committee on the Rights of the Child and
the UN human rights monitoring mechanisms as well as with independent
institutions (child defenders, …) and specialized NGOs in order to
guarantee children the full enjoyment of their rights.

19. We call upon the international community as a whole to:

a) Facilitate verification, evaluation and control systems of the
Convention, guarantee to the Committee and to the UN system of special
procedures, designed to promote and protect human rights, adequate
means to fulfill their mandate.

b) Implement a new world governance, namely to deal with transnational
questions concerning children (migration, human trafficking, child
pornography networks, sale of organs…).

c) Strengthen a human rights-based approach within international
cooperation.

d) Require firmly that States respect their commitment to allocate
0.7% of their GDP to developing countries.

e) Favor an equitable production, distribution and trade of necessary
goods in view of guaranteeing to families an income resulting from
decent work.

20. We call upon the media to:

a) Introduce in their ethics and professional committees a reflection
on childhood and adolescence in order to give a dignified and
respectful image of them.

b) Highlight the value of cultural diversity and facilitate the
dialogue among human beings, generations, and communities.

c) Contribute to diffusing a child-rights culture by training
professionals of their sector and by issuing and disseminating
publications that target children in view of their development.

21. We call upon moral and religious leaders to:

a) Enforce, wherever they are active, the respect of the dignity and
the rights of the child.

b) Contribute jointly with young people to the intercultural and
interreligious dialogue in order to prevent divisions, recognize
diversity as well as the equal dignity of everyone.

c) Be more and more concerned to educate to the values guaranteeing a
worthy human and spiritual life.

d) Show the value of each human being by clarifying the links between
their ethical and religious message with human rights.

22. We call upon civil society organizations to:

a) Diffuse the principles of the Convention and the Convention itself
while preserving and developing a real culture of childhood in
society.

b) Strengthen networking, ensure a more efficient coordination of
their actions, share their good practices and exercise jointly
pressure on public authorities so that they apply more coherent
child-oriented policies,

c) Design their initiatives in a way to include a listening approach
to children and their needs in view of strengthening children’s
participation in social and public life.


d) Realize multidisciplinary studies on childhood and inspire new
researches in a perspective of creative experimentation.

e)  Issue an annual report on the status of the rights of the child
worldwide taking into account the most remarkable achievements and the
most serious violations.

f) Be watchful to respect the dignity and the rights of the child
wherever they operate.

23. We call upon all men and women of good will to:

a) Actively monitor that every child and all children can grow up in
dignified conditions and in the full respect of their rights.

b) Give the example of solidarity so that each child can experience
altruism, generosity and be able to contribute to the common good.

c) Require from public authorities that they fulfill their obligations
towards families and children and that they constantly improve their
policies in this area.

24. The child, each child is a present for humanity. A present that is
part of a history and opens new horizons. He/she surprises and amazes
us while, on other hand, he/she should be amazed by the world that
he/she will inherit.

In order that this world keeps a human face, we have to respect the
child, to measure up to the child:

“You say: to take care of children is exhausting. You are right. You
add: because we have to measure up to them. To go down, to bend down,
to bow, to shrink. Here, you are wrong. This is not as tiring as to be
obliged to rise in order as to measure up to their feelings. To reach
up to them, to stretch, to stand on our tiptoes. In order not to hurt
them. “5

Janusz Korczak6


Geneva, June 2009


1  The International Catholic Child Bureau (Bice) has taken the
initiative of this document. Founded in 1948, Bice has actively
participated in drafting the Convention in the eighties and since then
it has constantly followed its implementation in the field and in
Geneva to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

2  A Reference Document accompanies and completes the Appeal. It can
be consulted and downloaded from Bice web site: www.bice.org or
wwww.biceinternational.org.

3 In accordance with article 1 of the Convention, a child means “every
human being below the age of eighteen years”.



4. The Reference Document speaks about TEN ISSUES: 1/. To respect the
right to life, 2/. To fight against poverty, 3/. To fight violence
against children, 4/. To support families, 5/. To take into account
working children, 6/. To guarantee quality education to each child,
7/. To guarantee the right to health, 8/. To give their place to
disabled children, 9/. To humanize juvenile justice, 10/. To put new
technologies at the service of children.


5 Prologue of When I am little again, French Association Janus Korczak
(AFJK), revised translation in 2007.

6 Janusz Korczak (1878-1942), a famous Polish pedo-psychiatrist,
writer, pedagogue, tireless child defender, died in Treblinka where he
has been deported with the children of his orphanage that he refused
to abandon.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
/Antonia Luedeke/
Country Representative – CIAI Vietnam
No. 18, Lane 31/46, Xuan Dieu Street, Tay Ho District, Hanoi
Tel: 0084.(0)4.2961820; Fax: 0084.(0)4.62581600Mobile: 0983.550830
Email: luedeke at ciai.com.vn <mailto:luedeke at ciai.com.vn>;
_info_ at ciai.com.vn <mailto:info at ciai.com.vn>
Website: www.ciai.it <http://www.ciai.it/>


*/For information/*
Kindest regards
Sarah
Sarah Bruchez

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Institut Universitaire Kurt Bösch (IUKB)
P.O. Box 4176 * CH - 1950 Sion
Tel. +41 (0)27 205 73 00 * Fax +41 (0)27 205 73 01
E-mail sarah.bruchez at iukb.ch <mailto:sarah.bruchez at iukb.ch> * Website
www.iukb.ch <http://www.iukb.ch/>


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