Australia affirms children’s rights
Australia has finally ratified the two optional protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The protocols, which extend the original treaty with additional provisions of equal standing, relate to the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (OP-CRC-SC) and to the involvement of children in armed conflict (OP-CRC-AC).
The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified promptly by the Hawke Government. The two protocols opened for signature in 2000. Australia signed OP-CRC-SC in 2001 and the OP-CRC-AC in 2002. It has only now ratified them, thereby agreeing to be bound by them. By comparison, 113 other countries have already ratified the ‘SC’ and 110 the ‘AC’.
The ratification of these international treaties is welcome, if unexpected, given the Howard Government’s open hostility to the UN and disdain for children’s rights hitherto, the indefinite imprisonment of child asylum seekers being a case in point.
A cynic might suggest the timing is an attempt by the Howard Government to deflect the pro-rights stance of the Australian Labor Party and in particular its new leader, Kevin Rudd. Two Australian jurisdictions governed by the Labor Party have passed Bills of civil and policial rights in recent years, with more likely to follow. Some Australian states also have commissioners dedicated to the protection of children’s rights and interests. Even so, the ratification process might have been in train longer than Rudd’s secret campaign for leadership.
Whatever the politics behind it, Australia’s ratification of these protocols is a patch of light in the unspeakable world of suffering inhabited by the children these protocols seek to protect. The UN estimates that 300,000 children are involved in armed conflict in over 36 countries. The number of children who are victims of sexual exploitation is likely to be far higher. The US State Dept estimates there are more than a million child victims of the global sex trade every year.
Both sex work and warfare are considered among the worst forms of child labour. In addition to the CRC protocols, Australia ratifed ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour in December 2006.
As Australia’s Human Rights Commissioner, Graeme Innes, says, "The next step will be to incorporate the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the two Protocols, into Australian law." Australia’s record on enacting international human rights commitments in domestic law is poor. Australia needs a federal bill of rights.
Although most countries around the world are now bound by these protocols, adherence is far from universal. Support Amnesty International’s campaign to get Russia to ratify the child soldiers protocol.
