A World Fit for Children

A World Fit for Children
by Sandra Griffin

One week before the United Nations Special Assembly was to gather and discuss how we, all sectors and all nations, could work together to create a World Fit for Children, the unthinkable happened. The violence of war, which we have grown so used to watching on the evening news in so many other nations, moved in next door. And for many of us, it moved into a room of our own homes.

“Mum, I'm the only one who showed up for work in my office—should I be afraid?” asked Megan Griffin on the morning of September 11, 2001 in Irvine, California.

Shortly after the second plane hit the World Trade Center, with more planes in the air and uncertainty regarding where they were going—after the unthinkable had already occurred—and recognizing that at that moment, anything was possible, how was I to respond to my 28 year old daughter? Should she be afraid? I was afraid. Afraid for my daughter, afraid for all my family living in the U.S., afraid for all the families who had said good-bye to a loved one, not knowing how permanent that good-bye was going to be.

And I am still afraid. I’m afraid that at this critical crossroad in the world, we will turn away from an agenda to create a World Fit for Children in our efforts to face down our fears. I am afraid that in our efforts to “rid the world of terrorism,” the “collateral damage” will be the time, energy and resources needed to create a World Fit for Children.

The UN three-day Special Session on children was designed to follow up on the 1990 World Summit for Children, which adopted a plan for promoting education, reducing disease, improving health care for women and children, and providing better sanitation and food supplies. UN organizers say 75 heads of state and government from five continents had confirmed they would attend the session, as well as more than three thousand non-governmental organizations (including the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children), and thousands of children and young people. The Session, perhaps the most inclusive United Nations conference ever, was to feature the participation of Nobel laureates, corporate CEOs, artists and writers.

The Special Session would have been only the second time in history that world leaders met to discuss and commit themselves to children. The first occasion was the 1990 World Summit for Children—the first UN summit to set concrete, measureable, timebound goals to punctuate the fine words and sentiments that such meetings generate. Internationally, UNICEF has consistently monitored and reported on progress towards these goals.

Three million fewer children are dying of preventable illness this year than would have in 1990, almost a billion more people have access to improved water supplies, malnutrition has declined by 17 per cent in developing countries and net primary school enrollment has increased—even with population growth. However, 149 million children are still malnourished, 1.1 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water, and maternal death rates have remained virtually unchanged at 515,000 annually. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), close to 36,000 children died from conditions of starvation on September 11, 2001.

Susan McClelland wrote in MacLean’s magazine (Monday, September 17, 2001): “More than a million children in Canada—an increase of about 28 per cent since 1989—now live in households with incomes below what Statistics Canada calls the low-income cutoff. Facing long waiting lists for subsidized housing, more families with young kids are ending up homeless. The number of people using food banks is up 92 per cent over the past decade, and studies suggest about 40 per cent of users are under the age of 18.”

We are told that the Special Session has just been postponed and will be rescheduled. We are told that the basis for a new global agenda to ensure the survival, protection and development rights of children —the outcome document prepared for the Special Session entitled A World Fit for Children—will be finalized and agreed upon at the Special Session. Then, how large it lives is up to all of us. Ironically, September 11, 2001 marked the first anniversary of the signing of the First Ministers’ Agreement on Early Childhood Development here in Canada—a document describing an unprecedented working together of our provincial/territorial governments and our federal government to support families and communities “in their efforts to ensure the best possible future for their children.”

While the tragedy of September 11, 2001 eclipsed this historic event for our community, let us use it to remind ourselves that our children are still “the only future any nation has” and to work together across all sectors, faiths, nations to ensure the best possible future for all children. The unprecedented “pulling together” that we have witnessed in response to the tragedy of the terrorist attacks in the UN must include a commitment to creating A World Fit for Children because:

“Only when the world is fit for children will terrorism be vanquished.”
Senator Landon Pearson, Sept. 18, 2001, Ottawa, Ontario

Sandra Griffin is the executive director of the CCCF. She is Vice-President of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children.

Interaction, Vol. 15, No. 4, Winter 2002, p.4.