The United States is one of only two countries in the world that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child “Rights of the Child.” Somalia, a country heavily riddled with female genital mutilation and lacking in a structured government, is the other.
Alarming? On the surface, yes. But according to the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the U.S.’s treaty ratification process can take decades to complete. After signing an “intent” to ratify the treaty in 1995, 15 years of putting it on the backburner seems to be approaching “inexcusable.”
UNICEF also says many countries that have ratified it have yet to enact it, which somewhat contrasts with the U.S.’s shortcomings. Many issues children face worldwide include manual labor, physical abuse, sexual exploitation, warfare (child soldiers), and of course lack of education or access to shelter/housing, nutrition, and water. And American children are not entirely exempt from that.
So why has the U.S. not yet ratified this? We boast being the “land of the free” and being a wealthy, privileged nation – yet we deny children their rights explicitly. The excuse that the agenda is too full to accommodate this ratification as of now, or that the process takes an extensive amount of time don’t quite fly – when every other nation has made it a priority to ratify and protect their children’s rights. Granted, as discussed earlier with the Equal Rights Amendment, governmental text does not guarantee enforcement.
But it’s a start.
