The Convention On Children's Rights Must Be Implemented

I first became involved in child protection and working for the drafting and approval of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in the 1980s. The twentieth anniversary of that convention is being celebrated this month.

One day, I was mistaken for a tourist while I was walking along the street in Olongapo City in the Philippines. It was then a big town that lived off the nearby US Naval base on Subic Bay and sex bars were everywhere, pimps touted young women openly on the street. One pimp came up to me and to my horror offered me two small children, about 12 years old. He told me I could do anything I liked to them. He laughed when I said I was going to call the police, and he was gone before I could do anything to get help to save the children. I was determined from then on to change the terrible situation of enslaved children in the power of sex abusers.

After that experience I arranged for the Preda Foundation that I started in 1974 to expand its services and help child victims of trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation and child abuse. Preda now operates a government-approved and licensed child-care Centre with an active 24 hours on call rescue team. The victims are brought to the protection of safe and caring residential homes with a full team of female social workers, counselors and therapists that protect the children and help them recover. The Preda para-legal staffs are busy trying to bring the abusers to justice. There are 56 abused girls in the homes at any one time healing and recovering in safety. Some have been rescued from sex bars, others from their own homes where someone with access abuse them. The youngest is four years old and she was rescued from an abuser and she was found to have a venereal disease.

At the same time, Preda child rights education teams visit communities and schools daily to teach the rights enshrined in the "Convention" using multi-media presentations, brochures and comics to get the message across. Before the passing of the Convention there was not much worldwide concern or awareness worldwide about children's rights to be affirmed, loved, cared for, be protected, get a name and an education and health care. Millions were enslaved in child labor and millions more were jailed as adults, millions more went hungry and sick. Many were deprived of their basic human rights as children. Sadly this is still the world wide reality, while much has changed because of the convention, it is not enough.

Twenty years ago, dedicated people were determined to enshrine the rights of the child in a United Nations Convention that would be the basis of law and oblige nations everywhere to bring their national legislation into line with the convention and to report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

I was a delegate in Helsinki during the conference to finalize the NGO draft proposal of the Convention. ( see www.preda.org ).

There was great happiness when it was finally passed by the United Nations. The work had just begun to make it the basis of new child protection laws in the Philippines. Years later, Republic Act 7610 came into law, then it was followed by other child protection laws. However, no matter how strongly the rights of the child is stated in law if there is no political will to implement them they remain dead and children remain vulnerable and increasingly abused and exploited. Tragically with some exceptions, that is the situation in the Philippines. There is generally little implementation of the law. Corruption, a thriving sex industry where thousands of minors are sexually exploited by local and foreigners continues. While the other provisions of the convention, education and health care are being implemented, however weakly, mostly by non-government agencies, there is so much more that has to be done. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is one of the most important documents in the world and we must continue to work to have it upheld and respected everywhere.