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Globalization and the State of the World’s Children
Unicef Report on the State of the World’s Children: Since the UNCRC’s Inception 20 Years
Ago...
 Globally, around 84% of primary-school-age children are being educated and gender gaps in
school enrolment are shrinking.
 Approximately 70 countries have incorporated children’s codes into their national
legislations to further protect them from violence and abuse.
However...
 Millions of children still remain without essential services to help ensure their survival.
 Many children still lack the protective environment needed to safeguard them against
violence and abuse.
In the next 20 years, it is the goal of the UNCRC and children’s organizations to build upon the
progress already achieved and to ensure that the children still being denied their rights can be
reached.
Core Principles
*In this research seminar, we will examine and investigate two of the four core principles of the
UNCRC that the UNICEF report reviews:
~Non-discrimination or universality~
~Right to life, survival, and development~
Every child has the right to be protected
from discrimination, irrespective of the
child’s or his/her parent or legal
guardian’s race, colour, sex, language,
religion, political or other opinion,
national, ethnic or social origin, property,
disability, birth or other status (Unicef).
Every child should have access to the
highest attainable standard of health,
health services,an adequate standard of
living, and the chance to develop to his/her
full potential (Unicef).
*The focus of this research seminar will be to look at the progress made and challenges ahead in
these initiatives with a critical lens.
Social Discrimination
Children experience discrimination on a frequent basis. Neglect due to ethnicity or religion, failure
to be registered at birth, child marriage, child labour, exploitation – these are all forms of abuse that
children around the world face based upon their social status (Unicef). They are in direct violation
of the right to protection from harm and undermine children’s physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. A common concern, then, is why children are still being discriminated against if the
UNCRC’s core principle of non-discrimination has been actively implemented in many countries.
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One perspective is that social or religious norms that condone these practices take
precedence over legalities. For instance, in Middle Eastern countries where Shari’a law
dominates, children who were born out of wedlock are not accorded the same social and
educational opportunities as their marital counterparts (Syed, 1998).

Another viewpoint refers to the idea that children are shunted simply because they are
children. At one point in time, young people were not deemed to be capable rights-holders
and so they were in a sense discriminated against by comparison to adults (Besson, 2005).
Of course, it is our definition of childhood, I believe, that keeps this view intact. By
categorizing it as a separate period of life, it has been argued that they should be treated by
different standards.
The progress the UNCRC has made in this sphere has been slow and limiting, but solutions like
better measurement and monitoring of protection violations are currently being proposed (Unicef).
Perhaps the best way to overcome this challenge is to consider the socially constructed nature of
childhood; by positioning children in different ways and allowing them to make their own voices
heard, discrimination may just be lessened.
Maltreatment
Currently, improvements have been occurring with regards to children and their right to life,
survival, and development. More children now than ever before are entering primary school, girls
are being accorded more access to education, and health care practices are enhancing (Unicef). But
of course, stronger advances are still required in many areas of child development. For the purpose
of time constraints, I will be focusing on the progress and challenges of two key issues: poverty and
the impact of disease.
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
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Right now, 2 million children across the world are living with HIV/AIDS. The demand for
testing, treatment, and prevention outstrip supply due to resource-poor environments and
malfunctioning or underdeveloped health and social protection systems (Unicef). To look at
a particular case, in Trinidad and Tobago where rates of HIV are most prevalent, around 6%
of children have the disease, but even more have been left as orphans on the streets because
of it (Jones, 2009). These children are involved with prostitution and so have been
marginalized because of the possibility of HIV associated with it.
When it comes to addressing the disparity between rights and reality, the point is to look at
the intersecting social factors that influence the access children have to essential services
and education. Everyone, including children themselves, have their own conceptualization
of child rights and this no doubt impacts how they experience or deliver them. There needs
to be a multifaceted approach to safeguarding the rights of children, one that provides them
with services and strategies that relate to the specific circumstances they face (Jones, 2009).
This is how real improvement may yet be accomplished.
As regards poverty, children from income-poor families still have far higher rates of underfive mortality and are less likely to be in school than children from wealthier families
(Unicef). Even in Canada, despite its obligation to provide poor young people with
economic security, child poverty is still a major problem and puts at risk children’s ability to
exercise their rights (Covell & Howe, 2003). To combat a problem as widespread as child
poverty, it is again necessary to reform rights to fit the specific situations of children.
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Ultimately, the right to life, survival, and development consists of such a broad range of issues that I
that it cannot be generalized to every aspect of children’s lives. Each culture possesses its own
version of childhood and each child has his/her own individual identity and experiences while still
participating in the world at large (Jones, 2009). As such, if children’s rights are to continue to be
realized within the next 20 years, then links should be made between the “local” and the “global”.
Relation to Personal Experience: The Internet
I think it’s important that we look at how child rights affected our childhood years and so I chose
this article to follow up on this idea as it is relevant to something we all know well in our lives: the
internet. All over the world, children log in online to connect and communicate freely, but it can
expose them to predatory and deviant individuals who have the potential to harm. This makes it
difficult to enforce the right of the child to be protected from harm, abuse and exploitation. Policymakers, as a result, focus mainly on the dangers associated with the internet and what they can do to
limit children’s access to it (McAloney & Wilson, 2010).
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Children use the internet for a variety of purposes including education, entertainment,
information, and social networking; they may seek out fun, supportive experiences or
involve themselves in risky behaviours. If the core principles of non-discrimination and
right to development are to be fully realized in the coming future, then we need to move past
the common assumption that children are passive recipients of information and acknowledge
the active role they play in bringing about benefit or harm to themselves through their
interactions on the internet (McAloney & Wilson, 2010).
Children’s Perspectives
Overcoming the challenges and furthering the progress of the core principles of the UNCRC in the
next 20 years requires us to listen to the voices of children regarding how they think about and
experience rights in their everyday lives. Only by doing this can we ensure that their needs will be
met; we must learn from children and youth themselves what those needs are! If we wish to put an
end to discrimination and better the livelihoods of children encumbered by poverty and disease,
then we need to take off our adult glasses and see how young people describe and conceptualize
these situations. As the UNICEF report indicates, the UNCRC paved the way for positive change in
the last 20 years, but if the world is to continue down this path, then children need to ultimately be
participating in decisions made about their rights. Childhood should no longer be construed in terms
of dependency, but interdependency with adults instead. Young people are powerful, not powerless
(Unicef; Peterson-Badali, 2008).
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References
Besson, S. (2005). The principle of non-discrimination in the Convention on the Rights of the
Child. International Journal of Children’s Rights, 13(4), 433-461.
Covell, K. & Howe, R.B. (2003). Child poverty in Canada and the rights of the child. Human Rights
Quarterly, 25(4), 1067-1087.
Jones, A. (2009). Social marginalization and children’s rights: HIV-affected children in the
Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Health & Social Work, 34(4), 293-300.
Peterson-Badali, M. (2008). Studying children’s perspectives on self-determination and nurturance
rights: Issues and challenges. Journal of Social Issues, 64(4), 749-769.
Syed, S. (1998). The impact of Islamic law on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights
of the Child: The plight of non-marital children under Shari’a. International Journal of
Children’s Rights, 6(4), 359-393.
United Nations Children’s Fund. (2009). The state of the world’s children. New York: Brodock
Press.
Wilson, J.E. & McAloney, K. (2010). Upholding the Convention on the Rights of the Child: A
quandary in cyberspace. Child Care in Practice, 16(2), 167-180.