救助儿童会

20 November 2009 (China, Beijing) – Today marked 20 years since world leaders ratified The Convention on the Rights of the Child, recognising the need for a special set of rights to protect children. The Convention was passed on the 20th November 1989 at the United Nations 44^th General Assembly, becoming the most universally accepted and widely ratified human rights treaty.

Approved in 193 countries, the Convention articulates a set of universal children’s rights including the right to survival; to develop to the fullest; and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life. The four core principles of the Convention are non-discrimination; devotion to the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child.  

The Convention on the Rights of the Child stresses the political rights of children as citizens; economic, social and cultural rights; and the importance of international cooperation between member States in protecting children. What the Convention advocates is different from traditional attitudes toward children with the emphasis on the value of children in society. This departs from the view that children should be protected because they are vulnerable, instead focusing on children as a capable and active group with rights and the ability to exercise these rights.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child was signed in China in 1990 and approved at the Standing Committee’s 23rd meeting of the seventh plenum of the National Peoples Congress. The Convention officially came into effect in April 1992.

As one of the earliest international organisations to protect child rights, Save the Children Founder, Eglanyne Jebb, drafted a Child Rights Charter in 1923. This Charter formed the basis for the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child.

“For 90 years children’s rights have remained at the heart of everything we do,” said Charlotte Petri Gornitzka, Secretary General International Save the Children Alliance. “We know it is children that are often more vulnerable to abuse and harm, yet we see adults are more easily able to access remedies when their rights are violated. It is time we stopped seeing the Convention as a set of aspirational goals or a moral wishlist and started to view the rights as binding legal obligations.”

From the beginning of the 1980s, Save the Children China Programme has been working with the Chinese government to address the issue of children’s rights. Running education, protection, health and emergency relief programmes in Yunnan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Sichuan, Beijing and Shanghai, Save the Children employ a number of different methods to bring about policy change, enabling more children to attain their fundamental rights as documented in the Convention.

To promote the enforcement of the Convention in terms of children’s rights to proper healthcare, Save the Children this year launched a global health initiative called the Newborn Child Survival campaign. The aim of the campaign is to realise the United Nations Millennium Development Goal four of reducing the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015.

On the afternoon of the 20^th November, Save the Children China Programme Beijing office held a contest on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Child rights specialist, Jay Wisecarver, and Save the Children staff took part in a range of activities, revisiting the main objectives of the Convention and holding a question and answer session.

Meanwhile, on the same afternoon in Shanghai, Save the Children China Programme held a 20^th anniversary event with local partner, Shanghai Minhang District Yinxin Primary School. Director of Programmes, Zhao Zhonghua, gave a presentation to the students on the history and key messages from the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Students from migrant schools, Shanrong Primary School, Huaxin Primary School and Yinxing Primary School demonstrated their understanding of the Convention and their ideas for the schools’ student-lead health promotion activities. Students also were strong advocates against smoking in schools and in the home.

Across the country in the Nagqu prefecture, Tibet, Sejie had her first hospital checkup five months into her pregnancy. In Tibetan nomad and farming regions it is rare for township hospitals or health centres to have maternity facilities. For women who choose to give birth in hospitals, they must travel to the county hospital prior to the delivery. The sparse population and harsh climate further contribute to the way communities cling to old traditions. Near to term mothers still perform strenuous household tasks, with mothers and their families lacking awareness of the importance of regular health checks during pregnancy and the benefits of giving birth in a hospital. This lack of awareness makes many Tibetan women reluctant to travel to the county hospital.

Throughout 2008 and 2009, Save the Children has been working with six county health bureaus in the Tibetan Naqqu and Lhoka prefectures holding participatory mother and baby healthcare workshops. The workshops promote the importance of health checks during pregnancy, encouraging mothers to deliver in hospitals. Save the Children also invites gynecologists to give talks to village-level health workers and members of local Women’s Federations on maternal health, pregnancy health checks, emergency labour management etc. Awareness levels among local farmers are already increasing. “They say that we should go to the hospital to have our babies and I think this is the right thing to do” said Sejie.

“Over the last 20 years the Convention on the Rights of the Child has revolutionised the way children are viewed in our societies,” said Susanna Villaràn, a member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, speaking from a Save the Children conference in Geneva, “In many countries around the world, governments, individuals and most importantly children, know they should be treated with respect by others, be able to go to school, be healthy and have the freedom to be who they want to be.”

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