1. Spiros Tzelepis: Which do you consider the most important right of all children's rights?
   • Carol Bellamy: The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which was adopted by the General Assembly ten years ago this September, outlines the rights to which all children regardless of where they live or who they are are entitled.
     

     One of the strengths of the Convention is that it applies to all children in all countries. Another strength is that all rights are to be applied equally. There is no hierarchy of rights no one right is more important than another, and all the rights are interrelated. This means that when one is considering how to implement, for example, the right to education (article 29), one needs to keep in mind the standards set in the other rights such as ensuring non-discrimination (article 2), making education be in the best interests of the child (article 3), ensuring that children do not perform work that interferes with education (article 32), and encouraging active participation (articles 12, 13).
     

     The body of experts which monitors implementation of the Convention (known as the Committee on the Rights of the Child) has identified guiding principles which must be considered when implementing the rights in the Convention. These principles call for all rights to be implemented without discrimination of any form, for all actions to be undertaken in the light of the best interests of the child, for implementation to enhance the survival and development of the child and for children to participate and have their opinions given due weight in all matters affecting them.
     

     In each country context, the violation of -or failure to respect- a particular right will call for action and demand the attention of governments, non-governmental organizations and UN agencies, such as UNICEF. By ratifying the Convention, governments become legally bound to implement the rights therein. But in reality, implementing and respecting all the human rights in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while it starts with governments, is best achieved through a combination of effort, including civil society: religious groups, youth groups, non-governmental groups, communities, families and the children themselves.
     

     Furthermore, while all rights are equal, limited budgets mean that it often becomes necessary to prioritize where action will be directed. What we must be sure to do is to undertake a thorough assessment to establish where the most pressing need exists and why the problem persists. Through a collaborative approach, we then need to decide how to address the problem.
     

     One action might be to identify with our government partners how changes in legislation, policy and practice might help. One example might be to introduce legislation that ensures girls as well as boys have equal access to education and are protected from hazardous or harmful labour.
     

     For UNICEF, another action might be to work with partners to ensure that the education provided is of a high quality, that the status of teachers is raised, that health care is available to children at the school or that children have a say in how discipline is administered at school. It bears repeating that at all times we must make sure that our approach and support programmes reinforce the principles of non-discrimination, best interests, survival and development and participation.
     

   
   
2. S.T: I read in the newspapers that 174 countries recently decided to fight against child labour. Taking into account that about 250 million children are involved in child labour, how do these decisions become real action against child labour?
   • C.B: New legislation has just been adopted by the International Labour Organization on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, such as bonded labour, prostitution and hazardous work. This is important because there is no defence against this kind of abusive work and laws are necessary. But translating words into action is the real challenge.
     

     For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer. But this is just one step. In 25 countries, UNICEF has also focussed considerable attention on improving the access to, and quality of, education systems; to make them more relevant to children and their communities, to involve communities more and to help communities understand the value of an education to the child.
     

     Working with the ILO and others, we aim to assist governments to set targets to eliminate child labour, starting with the worst forms. We have also worked with the industries which are notorious for employing children and denying them an education to establish standards, to fund schools for the children and employ adults rather than children, and to eliminate hazardous and harmful working conditions. For example, UNICEF and the ILO have negotiated with rug making companies in Nepal and India and with football making industries in Pakistan to eliminate child labour from their production lines.
     

   
   
3. S.T.: It is known to everyone that many multinational companies use childlabour. The dilemma is which is the most appropriate way for the rest of us to face this: Should we protest and boycott them or should we press them to improve the work conditions because if these children stop working they will face extreme poverty and hunger.
   • C.B: Some companies now have their own codes of conduct against the use of child labour. The problem is monitoring their implementation. UNICEF encourages the adoption of these codes of conduct by the corporate sector and believes that consumer awareness is important. It is a sad fact that companies develop businesses or contract work in the developing countries where they can pay much lower wages and escape the regulation and laws which would restrict them in their own countries. If enough people became concerned about the use of child labour in, say, the production of soccer balls or sport shoes, then perhaps these large companies might rethink some of their exploitative practices.
     

     It is important to bear in mind, however, that only a minority of the children who work do so in the export areas. Many (perhaps as many as 95 per cent) are denied access to schooling or forced into hazardous work in what we refer to as the informal sector. We must ensure that while eliminating child labor in the export industry, we are also eliminating their labour from the informal sector, which is more invisible to public scrutiny ? and thus leaves the children more open to abuse and exploitation. The informal sector includes the many girls who are forced to undertake domestic work or are pushed into the sex trade. The real solution is to improve the incomes of the poor and provide their children with decent education.
     

   
   
4. S.T: How can children influence the policy making process? Is this feasible for children of the developing world, taking into account that they have other pressing priorities, like survival?
   • C.B.: The Convention on the Rights of the Child calls on governments to take actions to protect and respect all children?s rights. It also calls for international cooperation in the achievement of these rights. Thus, governments must take all necessary action and where they feel they need help, other governments and the international community are required to provide support and expertise. But, as I have mentioned before, the true realization of children?s human rights comes from the collaborative efforts of all players in the community and this must include the children themselves.
     

     The dream of the Convention was born from the that children and their needs were not been considered when policies were being made, laws passed or actions undertaken. Cities were being designed without concern for children their realiation right to play and leisure, to enjoy their culture, to access schools and health facilities. Have you every witnessed a child attempting to reach a public phone?
     

     Thus the Convention is unequivocal in its call for children to be consulted, to have their opinions heard and to have their best interests considered when law and policies are being drafted. Here once again education is crucial, it enables children to be become more aware of their rights and to exercise them in a respectful manner which helps them shape their own future.
     

     Children have in the past and continue to influence policy makers. One good example is the Children's Movement for Peace in Colombia. The Movement was formed in 1996 as an alliance of children's groups and organisations working for peace. It aims to increase understanding in Colombia of the impact of the war there on children. Through the Movement, children have become a driving force behind the peace movement, thereby advancing children's rights.
     

     One of the Movement's first achievements was to mobilise children to vote in a special election known as the Children?s Mandate for Peace and Rights - in which children were asked to choose which of their rights were most important to themselves and their communities. The Mandate received backing from UNICEF and the national peace network, Redepaz, and the support of many organisations, including the Catholic Church, the Red Cross and the Scout Federation.
     

     The Movement grew so quickly that more than 2.7 million children, aged 7 to 18 years, turned up at the polls. They voted overwhelmingly in favour of the right to survival and the right to peace. Until the child rights election, the peace movement in Colombia had been weak. But in 1997, more than 10 million adult Colombians (compared with just over 4 million who had voted in the 1994 presidential election) supported a peace referendum that included backing for the Children?s Mandate, condemnation of the atrocities of the war and a personal pledge to help make peace.
     

     Peace jumped to centre stage in the Colombian political arena. It became the primary issue in the presidential elections of 1998 and led to peace talks between the government and guerrilla organisations. Today over 100,000 children are active participants in the peace movement.
     

     It is worth noting that when children's rights are respected and protected they not only survive, they develop to the very fullest potential. Thus survival and development are an outcome of a human rights culture and will continue to be at risk when human rights are not respected.
     

   
   
5. S.T: How can children from the developed countries help those from the developing ones? What I mean is not only charities, but by an immediate involvement in this process? For example, I have in mind the possibility of pressing their governments to give technical and economic help to the developing countries so they will be developed and make their citizens able to live with dignity.
   • C.B.: You have already suggested and the Colombian example above reinforces that young people are a powerful consumer force who can press for change not just of companies but of their own governments. And you are quite correct, a human rights approach is not about charity or benevolence but about respecting the dignity of every human being regardless of where they are born. For example, the human rights approach for UNICEF has meant that we focus far more than ever before on building the capacity in the country to identify and address the issues which arise. Rather than highlighting a problem that we consider important, providing money and leaving, it is important to work with the people so that they have ownership of what is decided and the programmes themselves are sustained and built upon.
     

     Young people can volunteer to work or raise funds for groups or organizations that work in this way with children in developing countries. They can write letters about children's rights to the editor of their local newspapers, to local politicians and their representative at the United Nations. And most importantly perhaps, children can learn about their rights, share their knowledge with the children of other nations, identify problems with them and establish how they might work together to address them. And each of us can practice rights ourselves, treating each other without discrimination, respecting each other's dignity and rights.
     

   
   
6. S.T.: How technology can help towards this direction? For example in education.
   • C.B.: It is now possible to have almost instant contact with any country in the world. Instant telecommunication allows better and updated information, lessons learnt and problems encountered to be exchanged and debated, it alerts us more quickly to problems and brings to many households around the world visions and information which hopefully spur us to action.
     

     And young people are ideally placed to make use of the available technology. Your online Junior Journal is an excellent means of exchanging ideas, experiences and learning more about the lives of other young people around the world. Through understanding, tolerance grows and thus television, radio and the Internet are more than just excellent educational tools.
     

     UNICEF's Voices of Youth has organized many Internet chats, like the one you participated in, among children and teachers around the world. Participants discuss and share their experience about important world issues such as the crisis in Kosovo, child labour and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
     

     And UNICEF uses the Internet to spread ideas, exchange information, to raise awareness on rights and on how to better implement human rights. Programme areas such as teacher education are currently being addressed, and breakthroughs in nutrition or health care are immediately available to our staff and partners. While the technology revolution has yet to reach far into the households of those in developing countries, this is certainly another area where more developed countries can assist those in the less developed world.
     

   
   
7. S.T.: We know that many countries like the European Union countries have food supplies which they usually destroy. How could we all organize a movement so that these products will be sent to those who suffer?
   • C.B.: Yes, there is a great deal of waste, and not limited to food products. Nor is the suffering limited to children in developing countries. Even in the so-called-developed world, children live in poverty, also denied their right to access nutritional food, witnesses to the wastage of the not-so-poor. We can all work more to ensure that the fundamental right to food is respected. That children who require food receive food not just the excess of the rich but food which is provided to them as their right. UNICEF has repeatedly called on governments to ensure basic services for children and this includes providing food where the need exists. And, when richer countries offer food to those countries in need, we need to ensure that it is practical and suitable to their diet. For example, food which needs a lot of cooking is not practical for countries where people only have limited amounts of fuel for cooking. Nor should we overload them with food which then replaces and undermines the market for the country's locally grown crops.
     

     If they do need the food products we have in excess, we must also ensure that the country has the means to distribute the food to the genuine poor, and for this we may need to provide the necessary transportation. In Sudan, for example, UNICEF has to airlift the food supplies to the people in the south of the country. This is costly.
     

     It is important to note that food is just one of the several things that people need to be kept alive in emergency situations. For example, following the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, thousands of people fled to neighbouring Zaire, as it was known then, (now it is called the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and food supplies were sent to them. However, many thousands died of cholera because sanitation and clean water could not be provided. When possible it is preferable to help people in need help themselves. As soon as the emergency situation is under control, it is important to provide seeds and tools so that people can begin to grow their own food again.
     

I suppose that what comes as a conclusion from above is that the children of our planet will live in a better world when all of us be active, concerned and caring.Even if some adults have forgotten the meaning of these words, there are the kids of the world who can find a way to remind these concepts to them. I am sure that we can do this.

Reconstruction: July-August-September 2002

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