NGOs address the General Assembly

Over the course of the Special Session, 15 NGOs presented oral statements to the UN General Assembly and Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole. Representing both international, national and community-based NGOs, they shared a wide variety of experiences, lessons, strong appeals and ongoing struggles to bring balance to a world that is "unjustly tilted against children," as one activist characterized it. The speakers included two young women under 18.

The statements covered a range of issues, including education, child labour and children deprived of family care and juvenile justice. However, only two themes dominated the 15 presentations. The first was the importance of child rights and the CRC as the "cornerstone for all follow up action from the Special Session"; and the second was the daily pervasive and crushing impact of violence on the lives of children - violence within conflict situations as well as violence caused by economic and social disparities, ethnic violence, including development-related displacement and sexual violence. In Sierra Leone, for example, the war was "only five years on and our children had already imbibed a culture of violence," said Christina Thorpe of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE).

Speakers acknowledged many improvements in children's lives over the past decade. Sixty-three countries achieved the World Summit for Children goal of reducing under-five mortality by one third; polio is on the brink of eradication and many other preventable diseases are being brought under control. "Yet these achievements," said Dean Hirsch of World Vision International, "are all but negated by the millions of children who continue to be violated, abused, trafficked, maimed and killed in war and whose voices are unheard or ignored." He concluded, "A world that tolerates or approves any form of violence and abuse of children cannot be fit for children."

The world is not fit for children, said the representative of the Global March for Children and the Global March Against Child Labour, Kailash Satyarthi, "who are bought like animals, locked in factories and houses and…forced into beggary where their tiny organs are mutilated to gain more sympathy." Nor, he said, is it fit for the "young girls trapped in the flesh trade, or the kids tied down on the backs of camels in the Gulf countries where the screaming of a child makes the camel run faster and his master is happy."

All speakers agreed that the international community, including NGOs, can and must do better.

• Trade negotiations and economic polices, resources, faster and deeper debt relief and high-quality development assistance should be increased and given priority to countries prepared to promote and fulfil children's rights.
  
• Tuition, textbook and stationery fees should be completely abolished in primary schools.
  
• A comprehensive, multisectoral and child-sensitive juvenile justice system should be put in place which fully reflects the CRC and the UN standards, rules and guidelines, including the UN Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of Liberty.
  
• In the CEE/CIS region, the system of institutional placement of children should be dismantled and replaced with support for families and child care.
  
• Governments must not wait until more people die before recognizing the HIV/AIDS epidemic as one of the most urgent crises of our time. Governments must set aside their own political agendas and subordinate them to the best interest of children. They must declare AIDS a disaster, prioritize and make specific commitments and allocate funds to preventive efforts.
  
• Children and young people must become a central resource in decision-making on issues that impact on their lives. Involving and listening to children should be institutionalized in public policy-making and programme delivery.

NGOs pledged to keep working, in large and small ways, making their own commitments on behalf of children. The Global March Against Child Labour, Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, Global Health Council, Global Movement for Children, NGO Group on the CRC, Child Rights Information Network and the Global Network of Religions for Children, among others, are all examples of initiatives where NGOs link with others to provide leadership on important children's issues.

And finally, the stirring words and brave actions of young people often working in dangerous situations cannot help but keep everyone going. Raising awareness about children's rights and responsibilities and encouraging the participation of other children, the Children's Movement for Peace in Colombia is already cutting the first strands of "the big fat big rope of evil that is strangling the world." Eighteen-year-old Mayerly Sanchez of the Children's Movement offered this moving promise and plea to the world's leaders.

"The suffering in my country, she said, does not "demoralize or push us into groups that are doing harm in the world. We are the ones who will find ways to free the world from the rope of evil and hate that chokes it. And when we do, violence will sleep so deeply that it will never awaken again. The adults who still do not believe in us will no longer be able to cover their ears and cover the mouths of children so they cannot speak, because now there are people like you who can use their authority to lead the world in the best direction and help our dream flourish."

Read the speeches made by NGOs at the special Session