UN children's agency launches report to mark 20th anniversary of CRC

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Thursday launched a special edition issue of the agency's flagship "The State of the World's Children" report, which focuses on the ground-breaking human rights covenant for children, and tracks the impact of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the challenges that remain.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Thursday launched a special edition issue of the agency's flagship "The State of the World's Children" report, which focuses on the ground-breaking human rights covenant for children, and tracks the impact of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the challenges that remain.

Launching the report on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the CRC's adoption by the UN General Assembly, UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman said, "The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most ratified human rights treaty in human history."

"It has transformed the way children are viewed and treated throughout the world," she said at the launching ceremony at the UNICEF headquarters in New York.

Also present at the ceremony were UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and actor Lucy Liu, and Grace Akallo, a former child soldier from Uganda, who discussed at the event the special edition, which explores the difference that the CRC has made in the lives of children over the past two decades and the role it can play in an increasingly populous, urbanized, disparate and environmentally challenged world.

On Nov. 20, 1989, the United Nations adopted the CRC, the first legally binding international instrument that incorporated the full range of human rights for children.

The convention has 193 ratifications, the process by which countries decide to be bound by the articles of an international treaty. It articulates a set of universal children's rights, such as the right to an identity, a name and a nationality, the right to an education, and rights to the highest possible standards of health and protection from abuse and exploitation.