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REPORT
A WORLD NOT YET FIT FOR CHILDREN
The Young General Assembly
at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children
May 2-11, 2002
United Nations Headquarters, New York City, USA
INTRODUCTION
In 1990, seventy-one world leaders came to the United Nations World Summit for Children to sign a Declaration and Plan of Action that would set guidelines for children’s programs for the next ten years. In 2002, only sixty world leaders came to the United Nations Special Session on Children not to sign an agreed upon document, but to conclude the negotiations that failed to be completed in spite of the extension of 8 months provided by 9/11 events. The United Nations Secretary General said in his “We, the Children” report assessing the achievements of the 1990 World Summit for Children goals, that while some advances had been made, it is lack of political will that is responsible for the poor state of the world’s children.
Three Preparatory Committee meetings (PrepComs) were held before the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children. Before each PrepCom UNICEF held a 3 day Children’s Forum. Fifty children attended the first Children’s Forum in June 2001, 100 attended the second Forum in January 2002, and 200 children attended the third Children’s Forum in June 2002. The Forums informed the children about the Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN protocol, and the Special Session Outcome document as well as giving the children opportunities to have discussions about international issues and hear some well known speakers.
THE YOUNG GENERAL ASSEMBLY’S ROLE IN PREPARATION FOR THE SPECIAL SESSION ON CHILDREN
The Young General Assembly was not invited to the first PrepCom because it had not yet attained Special Consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. That status was awarded after that PrepCom. However, three representatives under the age of 18 attended the Second PrepCom and presented a successful workshop on Evaluating Child Participation and lobbied for more use of the words “with children” and “with children as partners” in the outcome document. The traditional way of doing things “for “ and “to” children has not worked.
At the Third PrepCom in June 200, three Young General Assembly Special Representatives attended the Children’s Forum beforehand as well as the PrepCom. Two of the representatives had articles published in the daily newspaper. All three Special Representatives presented a two and a half hour workshop entitled, “Bringing the Global Movement for Children Alive.” The goal of the workshop was to have the participants make action plans for each of the Ten Imperatives listed in UNICEF’s Say “Yes” to Children Campaign and in the A World Fit for Children Document. Twenty-five action plans were designed to implement nine of the 10 Imperatives.
The three PrepComs were designed to prepare for the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children originally scheduled for September 2001. In September, three Young General Assembly Special Representatives went to New York City first to attend the Annual United Nations Department of Public Information NGO Conference and present a panel discussion there on September 10th. They were at the United Nations waiting for the Secretary General to ring the peace bell September 11th when the planes hit the Towers 20 blocks south of where they were. Even though the United Nations was closed and there many events were canceled, the young people managed to make visits to their respective United Nations Missions and have brief speaking roles in the Interfaith Ceremony at which the United Nations Secretary General, his wife, the UNICEF Director, the President of the General Assembly and the heads of 14 different religions spoke.
THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY SPECIAL SESSION ON CHILDREN
The 2002 Special Session on Children opened its doors and literally let children in. The 1990 World Summit for Children kept them out. In the 2002 Special Session, 132 governments brought children as part as their official delegations. Two hundred forty of the official delegates were people under the age of 18. There were no child delegates in 1990. However, the 2002 child delegates reported that while sometimes the officials listened to them politely, because of the mandates of the governments by which the officials were employed, the children’s ideas were put aside. Some of the official child delegates reported they were not even allowed to speak. The child delegates also reported that their governments did not prepare them well in advance.
There were 1,700 representatives from NGOs in 88 different countries. It was widely reported by children from NGOs that the only preparation they had for the PrepCom meetings at United Nations headquarters was the UNICEF Children’s Forum. It was extremely difficult to impossible for NGOs to get information about what was happening during the governmental negotiations and what issues were agreed upon and not agreed upon and why. Up-to-date texts of A World Fit for Children were seldom posted on the internet.
The Special Session on Children outcome document, A World Fit for Children, is a stronger document than the 1990 Summit Declaration and Plan of Action, but it has been greatly diminished since the Second PrepCom in January 2001 by the governmental negotiations. The United States official representatives at the Second PrepCom told the public that the official position of the Bush administration is that children do not need rights. The world was hoping that the Special Session negotiations would succeed in giving US children the rights and protection of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Because of US protests, the final outcome document does not strengthen child rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. There was a great deal of difficulty in agreeing that girls should have reproductive health care. At the last minute during the final Special Session when reproductive health was almost agreed upon, the US decided that reproductive health includes abortion and therefore the term “reproductive health care” was dropped from the document. The European Union was hoping that the US would agree to stop the execution of people under 18 which is allowed now in 17 states. But that also failed to become part of the outcome document.
At the end of the Second PrepCom, which met just as the present Bush administration was beginning, the words “with children” were found three times in the outcome document and also once “with children as partners” was used. In the final outcome document, “A World Fit for Children,” the words “with children are used twice and partnership with children is implied, but not stated in the Partnerships and Participation Section. “In full partnership with youth” was used in the HIV/AIDS Section, but the word “children” was not specifically linked with partnership..
THE PARTICPATION OF THE THREE YOUNG GENERAL ASSEMBLY REPRESENTATIVES
Ha Lan Anh from Vietnam, Sweta Sen from Poland, Temidayo Israel-Abdulai from Nigeria, and Ellen Brogren, Young General Assembly Secretariat Coordinator, arrived in New York on Thursday May 2, 2002.
After talking together for 45 minutes, Lan Anh, commented, “This is so cool! We are all different colors – black, white, honey, and yellow- and yet we are getting along as though we have known each other for a long time. The rest of the world should be this way!”
On Friday morning Ellen held a three hour briefing with the three young representatives to prepare for the UN activities coming up. Friday afternoon Monica Willard of Pathways to Peace took the three young people to Robert Wagner Junior High School in Manhattan to speak at a Peace Program and to several classes. Through a teacher there the young representatives were given free passes to explore the beautiful Metropolitan Museum of Art Friday night. Saturday morning the three delegates planned the side event they were to do on the third day of the Special Session. Two and a half hours in the afternoon were consumed by registration and the rest by an orientation meeting. Finally at 6:30PM they put down their heavy books and had an evening of shopping and fun with 20 year old Andrea Kominski, the Young General Assembly New York Representative to the United Nations.
The UNICEF Children’s Forum began on Sunday. The goal was to write a document which would be presented to the General Assembly plenary describing a world fit for children from the viewpoint of children.
In the morning, at the Children’s Forum opening ceremony, Kofi Annan addressed the children and said, “It is high time that we adults hear what you (children) have to say.” One astute young person near this writer quietly commented, “If he really means what he says, he would sit down and let the children speak.” The Director of UNICEF told the children that they were making history. It was the first time the General Assembly had invited children to speak at a General Assembly Session. Later a boy from Africa said that was not true. A 16 year old boy had addressed the General Assembly when before it voted on the child soldier issue. In the afternoon the Forum participants broke into working groups to begin writing their document. The venue was conference room 4 in the basement of the United Nations building in which stationary tables and seats made it difficult to meet in small groups. The three representatives reported their disappointed Sunday evening that they didn’t have much of a chance to hear from the children attending. The adult facilitators did most of the talking. Sweta observed that none of it came from the children’s hearts. They found that waiting for translations made the discussions difficult.
Monday and Tuesday the Children’s Forum continued. During their disco Monday night, the floor was literally jumping with the joy and enthusiasm of 300 energetic teen-agers. The young representatives reported that a lady from an NGO came to talk to them saying that she wanted to give a workshop at the Special Session and include children. She said that it would be very easy. Everything the children would say had been written down and all the children would need to do is to read it. She didn’t get any volunteers to be in her workshop.
When Nelson Mandela And Graca Machel arrived for the Children’s Forum closing ceremony, Temidayo could not restrain his joy. He leaped up onto a chair, making the security men reach for their guns, and started singing an African song of hope. Very quickly the other young Africans joined him as did Mr. Mandela himself. The Children’s Forum ended on a high note ! After the closing ceremony, the three representatives participated in the Global March for Children’s Rights.
Wednesday, May 8th, the Special Session began. There were only 50 seats allowed for observers to each General Assembly plenary session. Forty of those seats were given to children. Sweta was able to hear the opening plenary, but she was very disappointed. The Secretary General spoke and two girls spoke, but none of the observers could hear them. The loud speaker system was not turned on until after the children spoke.
Observers were kept out of the five meetings with heads of state and children and the first lady’s forum and the official discussions on the document. It was discovered later from children that spoke, that there was little impromptu exchange. All the statements were read. Temidayo spoke at the Inter-generational Dialogue. This session with African leaders was different. Temidayo was happy to have the opportunity to speak. He felt his questions were answered well, but the NGOs were not allowed to benefit from hearing this exchange.
The media was very much in the forefront at the Special Session, which was refreshing to see. The PrepComs had been ignored by the media. Ellen was kept busy escorting the three representatives to different media stations in cabs. Between Sweta, Lan Anh, and Temidayo, they had interviews with CNN, BBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, and Nicolodeon. Temidayo was invited to speak at a Chinese press conference. He was asked what his message to the leaders of the world is. Temidayo replied, “You have already damaged our future. Children have a message of peace in their hearts. You must let us work with you to repair the damage.”
There were many side events announcing that children were presenters, but none of the Young General Assembly team found one meeting where only children were in charge. There were a few meetings where youth (people over 18) were in a charge. The Young General Assembly side event on Friday morning, May 10th -Child Participation Day- was unique in that children were completely in charge and did not read pre-written statements. Their event, “Designing Successful Project Plans Involving Child Participation” contained three main parts. First, the young people went through the child participation rating sheet that had been developed at the Young GA side event at the Second PrepCom and led a discussion about what child participation is. Second, they introduced a project plan format and discussed how child participation can make a project more successful. Third, they organized the participants into working groups to have them design project plans involving child participation in a meaningful way. Each of the eight working groups produced a project plan. They were developed for use in African, Asian and South Sea Island countries. Andrea Kominski, the Young General Assembly New York Representative to the United Nations, brought crepe paper flowers for everyone to unfold for themselves and take with them to remind them that child participation can make their work blossom. At the end, when the young presenters, asked for an evaluation of the side event, a lady from Cook Islands stood up and said, “I sing you ( the presenters) a song of praise.” Lan Anh, the time keeper, interjected, “Well, please keep it short. We are running out of time,” thinking the lady was going to sing a song. Then the lady explained that she had been working for children for 20 years and had never thought, until attending that side event, about putting children in charge. She said the young people had shown her something that changed her life.
Later that afternoon Ellen was a panelist in the side event put on by the African Children’s Broadcasting Network, a Young General Assembly Member Organization. The topic was advancing partnerships in the dissemination of information and advocacy on the rights of the child.
EVALUATIONS BY THE THREE YOUNG GENERAL ASSEMBLY SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVES
Ha Lan Anh
I hoped to develop my journalist skills by coming to the UN meeting. I thought it would be an opportunity to become more confident in communicating in English and speaking with people I met for the first time.
I also hoped to learn how to host a workshop and increase my networking contacts. I like the people I met and I liked hosting the workshop. I was more interested in doing the workshop than attending the Children’s Forum. Because there was more interaction. I think I learned a lot and my purposes were fulfilled in some ways.
Temidayo Israel-Abdulai:
Coming to New York has helped my development by giving me opportunities to learn more about different children’s problems and how they can be solved, to network with other children’s organizations, and to clarify my own views and opinions on children’s issues. I was able to voice my opinion on issues that affect children to world leaders and press on them the need to solve these issues fast. I was able to learn from others’ experiences and teach others from my experiences.
The Young General Assembly can play an important role in the world by giving children a sense of hope about their abilities to participate and by modeling the Young GA as a world children’s parliament It needs to expand so all the countries are represented. It must become a stronger voice for child participation.
Sabina Sweta Sen:
I came to New York to collect new experiences, gain first hand information, and get good ideas for my organization. I had a big experience, but I thought all the sessions could have been more friendly to children. Nobody knows what is going on in the closed sessions about the document. I think all that the officials told us they will do will not be done. I’m sad to say that. All the days passed away too fast. We were always in a hurry. I think we could have organized our time better.
This New York experience gave me a lot of new things to think about concerning the world in which we are living. The Young General Assembly has a big role to play now after the Special Session on Children. We have to pass on all that we learned and have to keep on doing the projects and campaigning about the importance of child participation and partnership.
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