Ask for Program 410: Children's Rights (1996).

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ut to organizer Marian Wright Edelman, who mobilized the quarter of a million participants, the issue is both political and moral.

MARIAN WRIGHT-EDELMAN: Oh, I think that all the people who came here together, standing together, have really made a statement that we are drawing a moral line in the political sand and there are a whole lot of people out here in America who want a different set of values and priorities for our children.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But there were critics, the strongest being conservatives on Capitol Hill who charged that children's advocates want big government. There were also activists who hoped the rally might be the beginning of a new movement for children's rights as human rights. There was little consensus on what that implied.

MAN: Human rights means the most basic rights that we have as human beings-- the right to be feed, the right to be clothed, the right to be housed, the right that children have a loving family.

WOMAN: You have to remember that parents' rights are children's rights. Children are under the care of their parents.

SECOND WOMAN: You know, we put these people into office to represent us, and that's not what they're doing. They're representing, you know, the special interests. Well, I say the children are the special interests.

THIRD WOMAN: They have to be able to have a voice of their own. They have to be able to speak up and say, "Hey, this is what I want; this is what I need." And they don't have a voice in this country.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But some children are speaking up anyway with their own ideas about human rights. Kristin Hoven was there for Children's Express, the youth news service.

KRISTIN HOVEN: A lot of people that we've talked to have agreed that... That children have rights and should be respected for who they are and what they are.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Simon Rodberg is from Rise and Shine, a New York youth group.

SIMON RODBERG: I think children should have a right to have a say in their own future and in their own present and what they do with their education, their family life, their economics. I think children have rights to grow up in a safe home and a happy home, to be healthy, to have a good education, and to achieve their dreams and to be able to dream their dreams.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Kristin Flood from Virginia is active in Amnesty International.

KRISTIN FLOOD: I think people are starting to realize that it's not just American children; it's all children have certain rights, and all children are the same, basically. Like, a child in this stand for children right now, their lives are as much a value to us as a child in Burma or a child in South Africa.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The UN. Convention on the rights of the child was created to ensure a broad range of children's rights. It was unveiled at ceremonies led by many heads of state at the 1990 Children's Summit. The document sets new global standards for the protection of children.

INGVAR CARLSSON, PRIME MINISTER, SWEDEN: The way we respect the right of the child, it's, in a way, how we determine our own future.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Why was this convention necessary? Children were deemed to have special needs, needs that governments and families were urged to provide. The convention was based on the 1948 universal declaration of human rights. In all, there are 54 articles in the convention, guaranteeing children's right to education, family reunification, freedom of expression, health and health services, protection from abuse and neglect, protection from child labor. In 1995, United States UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright signed it on behalf of the Clinton Administration.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: This convention is an expression of our commitment to the survival and humane treatment of children everywhere.

KEN RUMENIE: The issue of children's rights should be addressed in global terms and in terms of the UN. Convention, because we are part of the world.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER GAULT: Ken Rumenie, a schoolteacher from Buffalo, New York, promoted the convention.

KEN RUMENIE: This UN Convention, if it were ratified, would certainly guarantee them a lot more security.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Human rights advocates say American children are losing ground relative to children in other industrialized countries. Here are some of the statistics they cite: every day, 15 children are killed by firearms; 2,833 drop out of school; 8,493 are reported abused or neglected; fully 21.8% of America's children-- 15.3 million-- live in poverty, three to five times the rates of Western European States. Marian Wright Edelman may differ from her critics about the causes of the U.S.'s attitude toward children and children's rights, but this was her day, and she concluded that government and families have to do more.

MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: We just lack the will as a nation to protect our children like every other industrialized nation does, and we know that America can do better. So what we need to do is to build the will in a critical mass of Americans to say we are going to let no child be left behind.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Yet Edelman and the emerging children's rights movement have yet to make global human rights a focus and ratification of the convention on the rights of the child a priority. The U.N.'s attempt to get all nations of the world to adopt basic standards about protecting children to define children's rights as human rights still has little visibility in the United States.

KEN RUMENIE, SCHOOL TEACHER: This convention will not go into effect until the... The whatever... The congress as a whole passes implementing legislation, but the rights are just there. They have to be respected if we're going to have a full quality of life for our children.

SIMON RODBERG: I think that children's rights are definitely a human rights issue because the way you have it now, where kids don't have an environment in which they can grow up and become good people, and if that's not a human right, I don't know what is.

V.O. ANNOUNCER: You are watching "Rights & Wrongs," human rights television.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Why are you here today?

GIRL: to stand for children. Children are very important. They are the future, and without children, there is no future. They make up everything.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER GAULT: Mm-hmm. We've been talking all day to young American children about their rights and what they think about them. But what about children in other countries? To find out a little bit more about how European Nations protect and empower their children, we sent producer Diana Frank to Denmark. Here is her report.

GIRL, SUBTITLED: I think all grown-ups ahould listen to us. After all, it's us they're bringing up.

BOY, SUBTITLED: Childhood only prepares you for adult life, so it's a good thing we get to decide some things for ourselves.

SECOND BOY, SUBTITLED: I don't think they listen to us enough.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: These seventh-graders are debating whether or not children should be hit. Not surprisingly, all were opposed to the idea. But some of these preschoolers, watching a skit about a naughty child at the Grand Toften day care center, disagree.

GIRL, SUBTITLED: You should give children a paddling.

SECOND GIRL, SUBTITLED: If they can hit me, I can hit them harder.

BOY, SUBTITLED: I think they should throw me into bed.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Here in Denmark, children's rights as human rights are taken seriously-- so seriously that even three-year-olds get to express their opinions. Should corporal punishment be outlawed? The teacher writes down their answers, puts them in an envelope, and mails them to a unique government agency known as the Children's Council. The Agency was established in 1994 to safeguard the rights of Danish children and to give them a public voice. It is now midway through a three-year trial period. Pier Schulz Jorensen is its Vice Chairman.

PIER SCHULZ JORENSEN: The Children's Council is an effort to work preventively, and therefore we need to make sure that the legislative and decision-making process includes children.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: There are no children on the children's council. Instead, seven adult members consult regularly with eight groups of children between the ages of three and fourteen. And once a year, at the annual meeting, the children get to express their opinions directly to the council on issues like corporal punishment, involvement in family decisions, and school safety. Since it is an advisory agency, the children's council only proposes. It's parliament that disposes. To date, at the recommendation of the council, the Danish government has outlawed the possession of child pornography and earmarked money for children's programs in shelters for abused women. Like other Scandinavian countries, Denmark provides cradle-to-grave security for its citizens. Danish children already enjoy the right to free health care, free schooling all the way through university, and a government subsidy of about $1,000 a year, regardless of the parents' income. What more could they need? Doctor Clarissa Crone is the mother of four.

DR. CLARISSA CRONE: Danish children do have a lot of rights, but the fundamental right that they don't have is the right to spend more time with their parents.

PIER SCHULZ JORENSEN, SUBTITLED: Today more than 90 percent of mothers with small children work outside the home, and that means that children need to be aware that they are people on par with adults and with equal rights.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Here at the Grand Toften day care center, care givers practice what the children's council can only preach. Children here have the right to make many decisions about their own lives.

GIRL, SUBTITLED: When we eat lunch, and when we go outside.

BOY, SUBTITLED: We also decide when to go to the sandox.

SECOND GIRL, SUBTITLED: Children should decide everything. Why? Because it's more fun.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Uta Ha heads the day care center.

UTA HA, SUBTITLED: When we changed things several years ago, we learned that when you give up power, you can't have it back. It was a good thing for us to learn, but it was difficult. It's all about power and giving up power. It's scary.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But the parents soon got over their fears.

PARENT, SUBTITLED: The kids have more fun together and can tackle more things than so many other children. That's a clear advantage I think.

SECOND PARENT, SUBTITLED: They learn to look at things critically and to question things. they learn to debate and it can be darn irritating not to be ableto put them in their place. But I like it because I question things myself, right.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: At Blargor Skolen, these seventh-graders are very aware of their rights. To most educators, seventh- graders with rights sounds like trouble, but not here, according to their teacher, Axel Barlow Hansen.

AXEL BARLOW HANSEN: Especially around 7th grade they usually explode, right? This class doesn't. Of course they've done a lot of things they shouldn't do, but they own up to it. You can talk to them. Their self-worth and self-confidence grow, along with a sense of community.

CHARLANE HUNTER-GAULT: Still, there are a few critics who think things have gone too far. Tobo Fergo is a member of Parliament.

TOBO FERGO, SUBTITLED: When you establish a council, it has to do something or else there's no point, so they find all kinds of things to interfere in like those aspects of life parents and children share. The family is a unit and the parents have rsponsibility for the chilldren. Such a centralized council is quite superfluous.

PIER SCHULZ JORENSEN: Society needs to recognize that we can't just leave the protection of children to market forces or private initatives.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER GAULT: So, do Danish children have any real influence on policy?

GIRL, SUBTITLED: Both yes and no.

BOY, SUBTITLED: I'm not sure they take us as seriously as they ought to.

SECOND GIRL, SUBTITLED: Not yet, but I think if it continues people will pay more attention to the Children's Council and children's opinions.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: It's too early to tell if children actually have an impact or if this is all just child's play. Parliament is expected to make the children's council permanent. In the meantime, the council is looking at ways to give parents more leave. In a world were six-year-old Pakistanis are chained to carpet looms, eight-year-old Thai girls are forced into prostitution, Latin American teenagers work in sweatshops, and child abuse in the United States is skyrocketing, the problems that children in Denmark face pale in comparison. Could it be because the danes are listening to their children?

SECOND GIRL AGAIN, SUBTITLED: It's nice to know that being a child might serve some useful purpose.

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CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The point has been made here and elsewhere that many American children are falling behind their counterparts in other countries. America, for example, ranks 18th internationally in infant mortality, and the gap between rich and poor is growing faster here than other industrialized countries. Still, children in many developing countries find basic food, shelter, and educational opportunities far more difficult to come by. With support from UNICEF and the Maryknoll Missionaries, "Rights & Wrongs" asked producer Ilan Ziv to work with international producers to create video diaries highlighting the needs of children without rights around the world.

YASMIN (translated): my name is Yasmin. I am 11 years old. My house is in Calcutta. Our mother is not with us. When I was little, my father died. My mother brought us up with the help of my uncle. Three months ago, my mother left us and ran off with another man. It is now up to us to look after one another. Bibi, why did our mother get married and leave us?

BIBI (translated): I didn't know she was going to get married. She said she was going to live in another place. She was not going to live with us anymore. She took our middle sister and went.

YASMIN (translated): Do you think she will return?

BIBI (translated): She won't come now.

YASMIN (translated): my brother-in-law divorced my sister so that he could marry again. There is no place in my house for all of us brothers and sisters to sleep. That is why they sleep in my uncle's shop.We go and wake them up in the morning. They want to send us, my younger brother and sisters, to the orphanage, but we will never let that happen. (translated): we could never go to the school because it cost a lot, but we now go to the Calcutta Rescue school. If you study well, they send you to the high school. If I study well, they will send me to the high school, too.

VOICE OF YASMIN'S TEACHER (translated): Yasmin, I'm very sorry. We can not enroll you in formal school this time.

YASMIN (translated): Why can't you put me in it?

TEACHER (translated): You haven't been coming since three months, so you are behind in your studies. We have to see how you are doing in your studies. You have not done well in all your subjects. Are you going to study this time or don't you have the desire to study?

YASMIN (translated): I will study.

BIBI (translated): Why didn't you come to school today?

YASMIN (translated): I missed the bus, Bibi.

SOCIAL WORKER (translated): You missed the bus. You don't want to read and write? Where did you go?

YASMIN (translated): I had to wash clothes.

SOCIAL WORKER (translated): Was she really late because she had to wash clothes?

BIBI (translated): yes, I gave her clothes to wash. Our elder sister wanted them washed.

SOCIAL WORKER (translated): Don't you wish that Yasmin should study?

BIBI (translated): Of course we want her to study, but our sister's daughter is very sick.

YASMIN'S TEACHER (translated): Are you able to answer the questions?

YASMIN (translated): Yes.

TEACHER (translated): You're not going to miss school anymore are you? You'll study well?

YASMIN (translated): Yes.

TEACHER (translated): do you study every day? What do you do in the evenings? Do you study?

YASMIN (translated): Yes, I do.

TEACHER (translated): When do you study in the evenings?

YASMIN (translated): At 6:00 in the evening.

TEACHER(translated): What kind of work do you have to do before sitting to study?

YASMIN (translated): When the house chores are finished, then I study.

TEACHER (translated): What housework do you have to do?

YASMIN (translated): I clean the dishes, make the bread, and sometimes cook rice.

TEACHER (translated): After that?

YASMIN (translated): After that, I come to school.

YASMIN'S SISTER (translated): You will go to school, won't you? How will things work otherwise? I'm trying my best, you know? If we don't do something, who will? Do you think brother will look after us? You know, my life is a failure. Don't think of marriage. If you study instead of getting married, maybe you can do something for yourself and for us. If someone talks of marriage, don't listen to them. Do you understand? Your life could become miserable if you marry now. My life has become miserable. So much money was spent on my marriage, and yet...

YASMIN (translated): Now my brother-in-law is pushing me to get married. If I get married, at least there will be one less person to feed. I'm very worried about my family. For this reason, I will definitely not get married now.

FORTUNE TELLER(translated): You are a very fortunate girl. You understand Hindi, don't you? Your education line is very good. You'll get married before the age of 26-- between 22 and 26.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Thank you for watching "Rights & Wrongs." Please write to us or e-mail us. There is a list of children's rights organizations posted on our world wide web page on the internet. I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault, reporting from America's capital.

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