Week 3, Blog #1 Youth and Human Rights

In 1989, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC, a human rights treaty set out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children codifying a range of children's rights into international law (Timeline of young people's rights in the United States, 2009). The treaty was signed by every country in the world, and currently ratified into law by all but two (Executive Summary, 2010).

In 1994, The United States became a signatory country to the CRC after then, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeline Albright signs on behalf of our country. Yet, the United States Congress did not ratify the agreement. 189 countries ratified it except the United States and Somalia (Timeline of young people's rights in the United States, 2009).

I can’t understand how the United States would not ratify the CRC. I’d like to believe that our country as whole believes that everyone is entitled to human rights. I know that the political reasoning is deeper than my understanding but that was the biggest shock for me. Madeline Albright publicly signed the document but I question if it was only to keep up appearances.

Why would the United States not ratify the CRC? According to the Executive Summary, on average, more than 24,000 children under five still die every day from largely preventable causes. Between 500 million and 1.5 billion children are estimated to experience violence annually. Around 150 million children aged 5–14 are engaged in child labor, in excess of 140 million under five years old are underweight for their age, and around 100 million children of primary school age are not enrolled in primary school (Executive Summary, 2010).

Influential educator Abraham Flexner declared social work focused on children "hardly eligible" for professional status (Timeline of young people's rights in the United States, 2009). Was it this type of thought process that allowed the United States Congress to not ratify the CRC even until the present day? Children undeniably have a right to survival, development, protection and participation (Executive Summary, 2010). I’m appalled by the power of our nation and yet the bureaucracy that more than likely caused our Congress to not want to comply with such an agreement.

There are 54 articles in summary regarding the CRC, and what I found interesting as well was Article 26 regarding social security. The child has the right to benefit from social security, including social insurance (Executive Summary, 2010). One of the big issues that I see headlines regarding in our country is Social Security. We are threatened in our youth that with the increase of population and average age expectancy we may not have Social Security to depend on in our latter years.

It is possible that by definition article 26 is not what we know as Social Security. Perhaps our country did not submit to ratifying this treatise simply because of the financial obligations it would place on our government by having to be responsible in the international court of law of upholding a child’s rights.

Timeline of young people's rights in the United States. (2009, May 17). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:57, May 19, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Timeline_of_young_people%27s_rights_in_the_United_States&oldid=290549375

Executive Summary. (2010). The Convention on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved June 14, 2011 from http://www.unicef.org/rightsite/sowc/pdfs/SOWC_SpecEd_CRC_ExecutiveSummary EN_091009.pdf