		Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 26 Nov. - 2 Dec. 1998 Issue No.405
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Current issue \| Previous issue \| Site map

Afghanistan photos: Reza-IMAX

Memories of childhood

Iran

Southern Sudan

Kurdistan

LAST Saturday, Mrs Suzanne Mubarak inaugurated the celebrations of the National Children's Festival, which takes place during the last 10 days of November. On 20 November 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and opened for signature on 26 January 1990. That day, 61 countries signed it, a record first-day response. Only seven months later, on 2 September 1990, the Convention entered into force after the twentieth state had ratified it. Since then -- in just six years -- it has been ratified by the entire world community, with the exception of only two states: Somalia and the United States of America.

As Sandra Prunella Mason, chairperson of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, noted at the Children's Rights and Wrongs Conference held in Nicosia earlier this month: "With no government recognised by the international community and no operational administration, Somalia cannot ratify the Convention now, but will presumably move to do so as soon as the situation improves. The case of the United States could be more problematic, and may remain the single obstacle to universal ratification for the foreseeable future. It seems a sad irony that a state with such a long tradition in the area of rights may remain the single state preventing universal ratification of such a widely accepted international legal instrument."

According to the Convention, states must ensure that each child enjoys full rights without discrimination or distinctions of any kind; that the child's best interests shall be a primary consideration in all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social institutions, courts, administrative authorities or legislative bodies; that every child has an inherent right to life and that states shall ensure, to the maximum extent, children's survival and development.

The gap between the ideal and the facts on the ground is very wide, however, as children's rights, especially in the Third World, cannot be separated from wider issues of social justice, peace and progress. Children are dying everywhere in the Third World because of wars and famines. All over the world, street children are in conflict with the law; the administration of juvenile justice either turns them into criminals or eliminates them altogether, as is the case with the "social cleansing" used against street children in Latin America. Children are subjected to economic exploitation and are made to work under conditions that threaten their health, education and development. Moreover, in many countries children belonging to a minority or an indigenous group are discriminated against and deprived from the right to enjoy their own culture and to practice their own religion and language.

The photos on this page capture the devastating plight of some of the world's most distressed children: in Afghanistan, Kampuchea, Rwanda, southern Sudan, Kurdistan and Iran. Moments of pain or resignation, of hardship and loneliness, captured by internationally acclaimed photojournalist Reza, were shown at his Memories of Exile exhibition held at the Louvre from 16 July to 31 August this year. Reza, who attended the Nicosia Children's Rights and Wrongs Conference, organised by the Centre for World Dialogue, has kindly authorised the publication of his photos in Al-Ahram Weekly.

Rwanda

Kampuchea