U.N. urges help for 1 bil. deprived kids

On the eve of the anniversary, the U.N. children's agency issued a report Thursday on the challenges ahead and the accomplishments since the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.

UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman called a sharp decline in child deaths a “remarkable achievement,” and lauded the increasing number of children attending primary school.

More than 70 countries have used the treaty to incorporate children's rights in their national laws, she said, noting a new focus on safeguarding youngsters “from violence, abuse, discrimination and exploitation.”

Only two nations, the United States and Somalia, have not ratified it.

Still, much remains to be done. Veneman said it was unacceptable that more than 24,000 children under the age of 5 die every day from preventable causes like pneumonia, malaria, measles and malnutrition. Nearly 200 million youngsters are chronically malnourished, more than 140 million are forced to work, and millions of girls and boys of all ages are subjected to sexual violence.

The convention has the widest support of any human rights treaty — 193 countries — though Veneman said not all are implementing its requirements.

The Clinton administration signed the convention but never submitted it to the Senate for ratification because of opposition from groups that argued it infringed on the rights of parents and was inconsistent with state and local laws.

Veneman called the U.S. failure to ratify the treaty frustrating, but noted that President Barack Obama and U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice “have expressed a strong desire to move the U.S. in the direction of approving the convention.”

Violence against children also remains rampant.

According to the report, between 500 million and 1.5 billion children are estimated to experience violence annually.

One of those victims, Grace Akallo, who was kidnapped by the notorious Uganda-led Lord's Resistance Army in 1996 when she was 15 years old and became a child soldier and sex slave, urged greater global efforts to rescue children caught in wars or subject to violence.

“Exploitation of children is not simply a breach of an international treaty,” she said at the U.N. “It's pain. It's suffering and confusion and damage. It's hope lost and hope betrayed.”

Akallo, now 29 and a graduate student at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, said that when she appeared before the U.N. Security Council in April, members promised to help the millions of suffering children in war zones. “That gave me hope that one day there will be peace, that children all over the world will be able to sing a new song, a song of peace, safety and love,” she said.

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