The Convention On The Rights of The Child Turns 30

by Jonathan Todres

Anniversaries are generally cause for celebration. And this week marks a significant one in the children’s rights world. On November 20, 2019, the global community celebrated the 30th^th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). What’s impressive about the CRC is not just its breadth of coverage (it’s the most comprehensive treaty on children’s rights) or its widespread acceptance (it’s the most widely-ratified human rights treaty in history). What’s arguably most impressive is its transformative value. The CRC has compelled governments to recognize children as individuals with rights of their own. It has spurred countless laws, policies, and programs aimed at improving child wellbeing. And it has done all this while reaffirming the vital role of the family.

Since the advent of the CRC, we have witnessed significant progress on an array of issues affecting children—under-five child mortality has declined by more than half, school enrollment has increased, child labor has dropped, and gains have been realized in many other areas. So, on November 20th, we should celebrate these positive developments of the CRC era.

And then on November 21, we need to get back to work. Children’s rights—like human rights more broadly—are still a work in progress in every country.

Here in the United States, the “To Do” list is far longer than a short essay can capture. Racial disparities, barriers to education and health care, trafficking and other forms of child exploitation, exploitative child labor, child marriage, and other child rights violations persist in the United States. And arguably the most blatant violations of children’s rights are occurring at the U.S. southern border. As a colleague and I have detailed, the children’s rights abuses perpetrated by the Trump Administration, through its family separation and child detention actions, are extensive. And the trauma inflicted on children, including toddlers, will likely have lifelong adverse consequences. In short, when the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg Trials calls your government’s actions a “crime against humanity,” addressing such gross violations of human rights must be at the top of any priority list.

Of course, the United States is the only country that has not ratified the CRC. Despite this, the treaty can still be an asset we can use to strengthen communities and support children’s development. After all, many of us are guided in our daily lives by moral, ethical or religious principles that are not enshrined in law. Children’s rights law offers the same potential. So while we may have to wait for U.S. ratification of the CRC, children’s rights frameworks can be employed effectively at the state and local level. UNICEF’s Child-Friendly Cities Initiative offers one potential model for partnering with cities and towns to help ensure children’s wellbeing.

Finally, perhaps the biggest lesson from the CRC is the value of children’s voices. Article 12 of the CRC establishes that children have a right to be heard. And their voices can make a difference. We need only look to recent youth advocacy on gun violence and climate change to see the positive power that children have and the thoughtful vision they have for their future and ours.

As Eleanor Roosevelt once stated, universal human rights begin ‘in small places, close to home - so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world... Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.’

Each of us can support and strengthen children’s rights by beginning close to home. We can use the CRC as a guide for creating more rights-respecting communities. And, most important, we can listen to and help ensure that all children are heard on matters that affect their lives.

>> Download the Every Child, Every Right CRC Toolkit

How to Vote for Human Rights in 2020

This Guide by Human Rights Watch dissects how to be a human rights voter and support candidates who want the government to adopt and enforce laws that promote and protect human rights. 

>> Voting for Human Rights: A 2020 Guide

Understanding Indigenous Enslavement

By Monita K. Bell and Julia DeLacroix for Teaching Tolerance

As Thanksgiving approaches, it’s important to remember that some Indigenous communities observe the holiday as a day of mourning. In this interview, historian Ned BlackHawk explains why we must understand Indigenous enslavement to fully understand American history. Ned Blackhawk is a professor of history and American studies at Yale University. A member of the Te-Moak Tribe of the Western Shoshone, he has worked at Yale to build the university’s Native American Cultural Center and serves as a faculty coordinator for the Yale Group for the Study of Native America.

What do you remember learning about American Indian history in school during your K–12 years? What did you learn about Indigenous enslavement during that time?

Growing up in the city, I attended Detroit public schools and a Jesuit high school not too far from our neighborhood. I learned very little formally about American Indian history during this period, though I remember doing projects as a child at Cooke Elementary about Indian history and culture for various school projects. I did well in both U.S. and A.P. European history in high school but cannot remember much formal instruction on the subject.

There are, for me, many ironies about this. ... Detroit and Michigan were formed out of deep histories of encounter between Europeans and Native peoples; the city both celebrates its early 18th-century founding and has countless French and Native place names. Even in a Jesuit school, with images of French martyrs within it, few [of my teachers] ever talked about the history of the region or its Native peoples.

Given that many educators themselves may feel they lack a solid grounding in Indigenous histories, what’s a starting point for understanding the history of Indigenous slavery in America?

As I have argued, [Indigenous slavery] is largely an institution that emerged out of the colonial encounter—particularly after the establishment of Spanish colonial settlements in the 1500s and 1600s. ...

We are now living with the legacies of these related histories of enslavement and colonization. And seeing the connections between them invites alternate understandings of the nature of race and power in American history.

Indigenous peoples in the Americas endured the burden of European colonialism in unparalleled ways and forms. European enslavement [of Indigenous people] was often an initial stage in the larger processes of land loss and invasion that followed.

Most people tend to think of American slavery fairly narrowly: in terms of black and white, 1619–1865, limited to the British colonies and then, later, the antebellum South. How does an understanding of the history of Indigenous slavery shift those borders?

It is very hard to understand the extent, brutality and legacies of American slavery if slavery remains synonymous with strictly African American history and peoples. In fact, before 1700, more Indigenous peoples were trafficked across North America than peoples of African ancestry. Indian slavery helped expand Spanish, French and English colonial realms.

Boston, Charleston, Santa Fe and Montreal not only held Indian captives but also became sites of trafficking to other imperial realms. Some scholars suggest that hundreds of thousands of Native peoples from across the Americas were also trafficked before 1700 throughout the Atlantic world. ...

>> Read full article

International Journal of Human Rights Education (IJHRE)

The 3rd Issue of the International Journal of Human Rights Education (IJHRE) from the University of San Francisco is now available. This special, guest-edited issue, was written entirely by Indigenous women from around the world. A podcast with the guest editors is also available here.

The International Journal of Human Rights Education is an independent, double-blind, peer-reviewed, open-access, online journal dedicated to the examination of the theory, philosophy, research, and praxis central to the field of human rights education. This journal seeks to be a central location for critical thought in the field as it continues to expand.

Nominate or Apply for the 2020 Teaching Tolerance Award!

International Human Rights Training Program

Applications are now open for the International Human Rights Training Program (IHRTP) from Equitas. IHRTP is an internationally recognized intensive three-week training program. It is the only training in the world specifically dedicated to building the capacity and skills of human rights educators.

The program is a unique opportunity for human rights educators to acquire practical tools to improve the effectiveness and impact of their work while deepening their understanding of human rights.

DEADLINE: DECEMBER 4

Equitas is a Canadian non-profit, non-governmental organization established in 1967 dedicated to the promotion of human rights through education in Canada and around the world. For more information about our activities in Canada, as well as around the world, please visit our website at www.equitas.org. 

>> Learn more and apply

10th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION

EVENT DETAILS: 
When: December 11-12
Where: Kathmandu University School of Law, Kathmandu, Nepal
Cost: $350 – Early Bird Rate (by October 30) $400 – regular rate.

The main theme of the 10th International Conference on Human Rights Education is “Human Rights in Academic Excellence, Technology and Artificial Intelligence."  Other important areas that will be covered as subthemes include:

• Human Rights in academic Institutions; 
• Human Rights in SDGs and Agenda 2030;
• Human Rights and culture;
• Human Rights in good governance, peace process, and justice.

This conference will also share Nepal’s human rights experience during the transition to democracy period and present Nepal’s achievements as one of the forerunners in Human Rights Education in South Asia.

>> Learn more and register

Creating Balance in an Unjust World Conference

EVENT DETAILS: 
When: January 17-19, 2020
Where: University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa College of Education Honolulu, HI
Cost: $25-$250 sliding scale

The Creating Balance in an Unjust World on STEM Education and Social Justice (formerly focused on mathematics education and now more broadly on STEM education) has been committed to supporting social justice educators since their first conference in 2007. The conference is built on the belief that mathematics literacy is a human right and seeks ways to make mathematics meaningful, relevant, and a tool to analyze and change the world.

The 2020 Conference Theme: Akeakamai: Critical Re-envisioning of STEM Education Through the Lens of Culture and Place. Join educators, parents, students, activists, and community members to explore the connections between STEM education and social justice.

>> Learn more and register

Organization of American Historians Conference on American History

EVENT DETAILS: 
When: April 2-5, 2020
Where: Marriott Wardman Park, 2660 Woodley Rd. NW, Washington, D.C.
Cost: $10-$240 sliding scale (early-bird deadline: March 25)

For centuries now, questions of “equality” and “inequality” have informed American politics and culture, and also appeared repeatedly in the histories we write, exhibit, and teach. How have the meanings of equality and inequality changed over time? The 2020 Organization of American Historians (OAH) Annual Meeting will address the theme of (In)Equalities in our past and present. 

>> Learn more and register