Protect Children's Human Rights
On November 20, 1989, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a landmark for human rights. Here for the first time was a treaty that sought to address the particular needs of children and to set minimum standards for the protection of their rights. It is the first international treaty to guarantee civil and political rights as well as economic, social, and cultural rights.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely accepted human rights treaty - of all the United Nations member states, only the United States and Somalia have not ratified it.
One of the Convention's key strengths is that it recognizes that rights must be actively promoted if they are going to be enforced -- awareness isn't enough. Children's rights activists have a powerful tool for campaigning for the protection of children's human rights in the almost worldwide acceptance of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
