Standing Watch

With today being the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, it now appears that just one country will remain as having not ratified the Convention, the United States.  Somalia had also not ratified it, but announced today that they will ratify it.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely ratified international human rights treaty, and declares that those under 18 years old must be protected from violence, exploitation, discrimination and neglect.  Former President Bill Clinton had signed the treaty in 1995, but to date Congress has refused to ratify it.

UNICEF spokeswoman Veronique Taveau told a news briefing in Geneva: “The United States has indicated that a very important review process is going on at the moment in order to arrive as quickly as possible at a ratification”.  According to Mark Kornblau, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations in New York, the administration of President Barack Obama was “committed to undertaking a thorough and thoughtful review of the Convention of the Rights of the Child”.

In the United States during 2007, over 3,000,000 child abuse reports were filed with law enforcement, involving over 5.8 million children.  Of these, nearly 5 each day die, 75% of them under age 4.  It is estimated that 60% or more child deaths due to abuse or neglect go officially unreported.  90% of child sexual abuse is inflicted by adults known to the child, with over 50% of those adults being family members.  The estimated annual cost of child abuse in the United States is about $104 billion (2007).  80% of these children are likely to meet the criteria for at least 1 psychiatric disorder by age 21.

The United States has taken over 15 years now “to undertaking a thorough and thoughtful review of the Convention of the Rights of the Child”.  Meanwhile, a report of child abuse is officially recorded every 10 seconds.  More than 28,000 have died waiting for the United States to sign the treaty and act upon it since Clinton signed the treaty.

Why?