January 2, 2024
Despite
the data showing the devastating impact of violence and war on children, the
last decades have been the worst of times for children. And the United States
remains a global outlier by refusing to sign the Convention on the Rights of
the Child.
The
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a statement on grave violations
of children’s rights in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory on
October 13, 2023. “We reiterate that the Convention on the Rights of the Child
requires States parties and all actors to respect and to ensure respect for the
rules of international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflict with
regard to children. The Convention also aims to ensure the highest level of
protection for children. We call on all actors, including the international
community, to act to restore peace and preserve the safety and recovery of
children as their immediate priority.“
Many
thousands of Palestinian children have been terrorized, killed, maimed, and
left orphaned since October 12th—their lives destroyed. Their enshrined human
rights, and to some extent their future, buried beneath the rubble of home,
school, hospital, mosque, and church.
The
CRC, the most widely endorsed human rights document in history commits world
leaders “…to protect children and to diminish their suffering…to uphold the
far-reaching principle that children would have ‘first call’ on all resources,
that the best interests of children would come first…in good times or bad, in
peace or in war, in prosperity or economic distress.” (Koffi Annan, 2001)
The
United States is the only country that has not signed this global agreement.
Perhaps
we shouldn’t have been shocked then, when on May 12, 1996—in a rare and bold
moment of truth-telling—Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State under
Bill Clinton, acknowledged the U.S. government knew that hundreds of thousands
of Iraqi children died as a result of US-supported economic sanctions. “The
price,” she said in her infamous interview on 60 Minutes, “—we think the price
is worth it.” Looking back, I think this might have been the beginning of the
end for children around the world. In a brazen public announcement, the US
government declared “the child” was not only not entitled to special, protected
status; the welfare and well-being of children was secondary to national and
international political and economic goals. And because the US wields enormous
military and economic power across the globe, children everywhere were
diminished, and worse, doomed.
Graca
Machel, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and
Armed Conflict, sounded the alarm for children shortly after Albright's
comments in August of 1996. Machel's report on the impact of war on children
estimated two million children had been killed in the previous decade, with
three times as many seriously injured or permanently disabled in conflicts
where “…nothing was spared, held sacred or protected—not children, families, or
communities.”
"These
statistics are shocking enough” she wrote, “but more chilling is the conclusion
to be drawn from them: more and more of the world is being sucked into a moral
vacuum. This is a space devoid of the most basic human values; a space in which
children are slaughtered, raped, and maimed;...a space in which children are
starved and exposed to extreme brutality. Such unregulated terror and violence
speak of deliberate victimization. There are few further depths to which
humanity can sink. […] Whatever the causes of modern-day brutality towards
children, the time has come to call a halt. [...] The international community
must denounce this attack on children for what it is—intolerable and
unacceptable.”
Despite
the data showing the devastating impact of violence and war on children,
despite her passionate call to action, the last decades have been the worst of
times for children. And the last weeks, in Gaza and the West Bank of the
occupied territory of Palestine, beyond words. Leaders of that same world who
signed on to protect children are watching, in real-time, the death and injury,
fear and suffering, displacement and orphaning of thousands and thousands of
children in Gaza; watching as their houses and schools are destroyed; watching
as family members die under the rubble of those collapsed buildings; watching
as everything important to support life—not “just” for a child, but critical to
life for any and every human—is denied. And, no one—not the United Nations, or
any international convention or government has had the political will or
authority to stop this unfolding genocide of men, women, and children.
Everything
that needs to be said about war, about children and war has been said. I have
nothing to add. So I will offer Graca Machel’s words—her call to take
action—another chance to be heard by the world community:
Above all else, the present report is
a call to action. It is unconscionable that we so clearly and consistently see
children's rights attacked and that we fail to defend them. It is unforgivable
that children are assaulted, violated, murdered and yet our conscience is not
revolted nor our sense of dignity challenged. This represents a fundamental
crisis of our civilization. The impact of armed conflict on children must be
everyone's concern and is everyone's responsibility; Governments, international
organizations and every element of civil society. Each one of us, each
individual, each institution, each country, must initiate and support global
action to protect children. Local and national strategies must strengthen and
be strengthened through international mobilization.
Let us claim children as "zones
of peace." In this way, humankind will finally declare that childhood is
inviolate and that all children must be spared the pernicious effects of armed
conflict. Children present us with a uniquely compelling motivation for
mobilization. Universal concern for children presents new opportunities to
confront the problems that cause their suffering. By focusing on children,
politicians, Governments, the military and non-State entities will begin to
recognize how much they destroy through armed conflict and, therefore, how
little they gain. Let us take this opportunity to recapture our instinct to
nourish and protect children. Let us transform our moral outrage into concrete
action. Our children have a right to peace. Peace is every child's right.
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