(1990s)
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A decade of world conferences and international commissions in the 1980s proved to be only practice sessions for the world conferences and UN commissions of the 1990s, beginning with the World Summit for Children in New York City in 1990. The Convention on the Rights of Child was adopted by the UN General Assembly on November 20, 1989, and the Summit was designed to promote the Convention for acceptance by the world. The Convention's preamble says: "Recalling that in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations has proclaimed that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance,” and the Convention designates the UN to guarantee that "special care” and determine what "assistance” is needed. The Convention grants to children the right to express their own views freely in all matters (Article 12.1); the right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds (Article 13.1); the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Article 14.1); the right to freedom of association and peaceful assembly (Article 15.1); and the right to privacy in the family, home, or correspondence (Article 16.1).67 Many Americans believe that children have no such rights until they have been earned through the painful process of growing up, and then it is the parent's rightful privilege to grant those rights to the child. Ratification of the Convention would be tantamount to the U.S. government giving the UN the authority to grant those rights to children, and the authority to guarantee and enforce those rights, even when parents disagree. In fact, the Convention would establish the authority, if not the mechanism, for the UN to establish the criteria for childrearing, including education, sex education, religion, and even leisure-time activities. There is nothing in the Convention to preclude the UN from requiring all children to attend state-run schools from nursery school to high school, and taking children completely away from the influence of the family. |