Almost every government on the planet has signed a document that is now thirty-five years old. It states that children are entitled to food, education, and safety from exploitation and violence. It states that no child should be subjected to torture. It asserts that children should be protected in conflict areas. It states unequivocally that all decisions made by adults on behalf of children must be made with their best interests in mind. And yet, in a nation that signed every document, a child is currently being recruited into an armed group, going to bed hungry, or sitting in a detention facility with adults.
The most widely recognized human rights agreement in history is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted in 1989 and is currently ratified by 196 countries, including the United States. It is supported by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, an 18-person group of independent experts that examines country reports, makes recommendations, and keeps an eye on whether governments are truly keeping their pledges. It’s the type of body that doesn’t often make news. That is a portion of the issue.
The scope of the convention is truly remarkable. The 54 articles address everything from birth registration to safeguarding children from dangerous child labor, from a child’s right to privacy to governments’ duty to inform children of their own rights. A nation’s ratification of a treaty is more than just symbolic. It is obligated by international law to appear before the committee on a regular basis and provide information for its records. Additionally, the committee has the authority to start its own investigations and accept individual complaints. The majority of people, even knowledgeable ones, might not be familiar with it.
The real story seems to reside in the space between the promise of the treaty and everyday life. 412 million children live in extreme poverty, according to a recent report from UNICEF, the UN’s lead agency for children with operations in over 190 countries. Every year, one billion children are victims of violence. Grave violations against children in armed conflict increased by 21% in 2023 alone, according to official UN reports. This number was met, for the most part, with institutional concern and ongoing crisis. The committee is able to make conclusions. It is unable to deploy troops.
The fact that OMEP’s efforts and the larger UN framework based on the convention have yielded tangible results while the scope of the issue continues to outweigh the successes makes them genuinely difficult to assess. Infant mortality has dramatically decreased since the convention’s adoption. Globally, there are more kids in school than ever before. The number of strong clinical trials that addressed children’s development increased from less than twenty to over 120 in the years after the first Lancet series on early childhood development. There has been real progress, albeit cautious and uneven. Whether it’s sufficient or quick enough for the current generation is still up for debate.
The gap between ratification and implementation is another uncomfortable aspect of the convention. Certain nations have signed the treaty with reservations that effectively divide it into entire categories according to national law or religious beliefs. Others have unreservedly ratified, but they still fall short in ways that the committee records in cautious, diplomatic language, which seldom generates the urgency that the situation seems to require.
It’s a sense of impatience with the machinery rather than cynicism about the project that comes to mind when you watch all of this develop over decades. The committee convenes. The reports have been filed. The suggestions are sent out. Children are waiting in Bangladesh, Mozambique, and Ukraine. The convention was established because, at least in theory, everyone agreed that children should be protected. What happens when the agreement and reality continue to diverge is the more difficult question, which the committee has been subtly posing since 1990.
