Why was a convention on the rights of children

needed?

The convention is not the first international document on the rights of children. As early as 1924 the League of Nations adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Children. This is what it said:

• “The child must be given the means for its normal development, both materially and spiritually;

• The child that is hungry must be fed; the child that is sick must be helped; the delinquent child must be reclaimed; and the orphan and waif must be sheltered and succored;

• The child must be the first to receive relief in times of distress;

• The child must be put in position to earn a livelihood and must be protected against every form of exploitation;

• The child must be brought up in the consciousness that its talents must be devoted to the service of its fellow men.”

A second Declaration on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the United Nations in 1959. Containing 10 principles, some of the most important ones are repeated in the Preamble to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Preamble reaffirms, for example, that

“the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.”

Children, it adds, should be “brought up in the Spirit of… peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity.”

• Twenty years later, The United Nations declared 1979 the International Year of the Child.

• Some countries were unsure that a

treaty on the rights of children was really necessary.

• The responsibility for drafting the Convention was given to a working group of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which met for one week each year in Geneva, Switzerland. All governments were invited to participate in the working group, to make suggestions on which rights should be included, and comment on the suggestions made by other countries.

• Reaching agreement on the rights which should be included took almost 10 years. But when the convention was finally adopted by the UN Commission on Human Rights and then the General Assembly in 1989, it contained nearly four times more right than the first draft.