ng Minimum Age for Admission to Employment, 1973, which remain fundamental instruments on child labour.” For the purposes of the WFCLC, the term “child” applies to all persons under the age of eighteen (article 2). The “worst forms of child labour” comprise: (a) all forms of slavery or practices similar to it, such as the sale and trafficking of children and forced labor (including forced recruitment for armed conflict); (b) the use, procuring, or offering of a child for prostitution or for pornography or pornographic performances; c) the use, procuring, or offering of a child for illicit activities such as drug trafficking; and (d) work that is likely to harm children’s health, safety, or morals (article 3). Each State Party is to adopt measures to: prevent the engagement of children in the worst forms of child labor; to provide direct assistance for the removal of children from such labor and for their rehabilitation and social integration; to ensure access to free basic education and, wherever possible and appropriate, to vocational training for all children removed from the worst forms of child labor; to identify and reach out to children at special risk; and to take account of the special situation of girls (article 7(2)).
VI. Other Initiatives
Among recent developments regarding children’s rights are an international call for action to end violence against children and a resolution adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on the establishment of a Human Rights Council.
Prepared by Wendy Zeldin
Senior Legal Research Analyst
- Stephen R. Arnott, Family Law: Autonomy, Standing, and Children’s Rights, 33 William Mitchell Law Review 809 (2007). Arnott notes that “the very term ‘children’s rights’ is both broad and loose,” id. at 808. [Back to Text]
- The U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child comprises a Preample and ten principles. G.A. Res. 1386 (XIV), 14 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 19, U.N. Doc. A/4354. For an online text of the Declaration, see the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) Web site, http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/25.htm (last visited July 20, 2007) (unofficial source). A list of the Status of Ratification of the Principal International Human Rights Treaties as of July 14, 2006, is available at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/docs/status.pdf (PDF) (last visited Dec. 3, 2007). [Back to Text]
- Geraldine Van Bueren, The International Law on the Rights of the Child 10-11 (Dordrecht/Boston/London, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1995. 35 International Studies in Human Rights). [Back to Text]
- DRC, principle 2, supra note 2. [Back to Text]
- The 1924 Declaration stated children “must be the first to receive relief”; the DRC specifies more pragmatically that they are to be “among the first” to receive protection and relief (principle 8). Van Bueren, supra note 3, at 11. [Back to Text]
- The Minimum Age Convention, comprising a Preamble and 18 articles, was adopted by the 58th Session of the General Conference of the International Labour Organisation on June 26, 1973 , and entered into force on June 19, 1976; I.L.O. No. 138. For an online text, see the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) Web site, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/ageconvention.htm (last visited July 25, 2007) (unofficial source). [Back to Text]
- The Convention on the Rights of the Child, with a Preamble and 54 articles, was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on November 20, 1989, and entered into force on September 2, 1990. G.A. Res. 44/25, annex, 44 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 167, U.N. Doc. A/44/49 (1989); 28 I.L.M. 1448 (1989). For an online text, see the OHCHR Web site, http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm (last visited July 23, 2007); it includes the 1995 amendment to article 43, paragraph 2 (G.A. Res. 50/155 (Dec. 21, 1995)), which entered into force on November 18, 2002. For the status of signatures, ratifications, and accessions, see the OHCHR Web site, http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/ratification/11.htm (last visited Nov. 28, 2007).The United States (and Somalia) has 