This page is background information, last updated in May 2002 and still available for reference. For the latest on the Special Session on Children, please go to the Special Session index.

Hundreds march for children's rights

Children in the Global march for Children's Rights walked from Union Square to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in Manhattan holding banners and placards.

8 May 2002, NEW YORK - Hundreds of children paraded through Manhattan today in a march for child rights, grabbing the attention and support of New Yorkers.

Representing more than 100 countries, they carried their national flags and held orange balloons that read, "Global Campaign for Education." They waved placards, demanding every important goal from an end to the recruitment of child soldiers to action for orphans and vulnerable children. They wore T-shirts that read, "Free Education" and "End Child Labour."

The march, coinciding with the United Nations Special Session on Children, began at New York's Union Square, moved east on 14th Street, turned up Third Avenue and snaked all the way to the UN at 47th Street and First Avenue.

Mothers with newborns joined children and young people in the march.

All along the way, the hundreds of children, forming a column that stretched unbroken for several city blocks, responded enthusiastically to their teenage leaders' megaphone-amplified cries: "What do we want?" The children clamored, "Child Rights!" The call and response continued: "When do we want it?" "Now!" They banged drums, rang bells, clapped their hands, jumped up and down and sang songs in English and Spanish.

At the front of the winding procession, a group of youngsters with peace signs and flags painted on their faces, carried a banner that read: "March for Child Rights." Behind them, another youngster held up a sign calling for nations to support and enforce the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

A teenager wrapped in an Israeli flag marched shoulder-to-shoulder with several teenagers wearing Palestinian kaffiyehs. A group of mothers carried their newborns. A cluster of Guatemalan children, surrounded by women dressed in traditional Guatemalan embroidered skirts, carried a banner that read, "The Global Movement for Children's Rights" in Spanish. "I came all the way from Guatemala to march for my rights," said 17-year-old Elmer.

Josephine, 16, from Kenya was on the march. The issues most important to her are access to free education, getting children off the street and educating people about HIV/AIDS.

Josephine, a 16-year-old from Kenya, carried a sign that read "Participation Counts!" as she handed out pamphlets advocating children's rights. "My three top concerns," Josephine said, "are access to free education, getting kids off the street and educating people about HIV/AIDS."

One group of marchers carried a poster of a child clutching an AK-47 that read, "Stop recruiting child soldiers." Another carried a banner with the signatures of orphans from around the world.

Up and down Third Avenue, pedestrians stopped to cheer on the children, and merchants and waiters came out of their shops and restaurants.

Briefly closing off every street that crossed Third Avenue from 14th to 47th Streets during the height of rush-hour traffic, the exuberant, cheerful demonstration ended with a World Peace Prayer Ceremony at the UN's Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.