After 27 years of CRC – more must be done to protect children

VOV.VN - Vietnam, the first country in Asia and the second in the globe to approve the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), celebrated 27 years since ratification earlier this year, but challenges remain, says the Zing Online Newspaper.

Over the past 27 years the government has made significant effort to implement the CRC.

Today there are better awareness-raising activities, the laws are more cohesive and harmonized, children’s issues are better managed and increased resources have been devoted to child development.

Since ratification, the child mortality rate has declined significantly and diseases such as polio and tetanus have been eradicated as the result of improved family and child immunizations.

Children throughout the country are also better educated now, with around 94% of primary school-aged kids regularly attending an accredited school.

Despite the improvements, the country continues to face many challenges in ensuring the rights of every child. Significant disparities persist among regions as well as ethnic groups.

In 2006, the poverty rate for ethnic minorities was more than 50%, compared to about 10% for the majority Kinh and Hoa ethnic groups— and little has changed over the past 11 years.

Meanwhile, maternal mortality rates are fourfold the national average in remote ethnic minority areas.

Too many children remain on the margins

The country is on the pathway to attaining upper middle-income status but far too many children have yet to benefit from higher income levels.

For far too many, their lives have not improved in any noticeable or substantive manner.

Pollution in the country is horrific and far too many children must live in polluted environments.

Throughout the country, an estimated 6,400 people drown every year, more than 50% of whom are children.

Far too many children still live in fear of sexual abuse and the government’s child labour laws are routinely ignored.

The Vietnam government and the people of the country must invest more in all its people – women, men, girls and boys – to realize their full potential as active and engaged citizens, both today and tomorrow.

It is not enough to say that most children are in school, that most children have clean water and a toilet or that most children are not living and working in filthy and harmful conditions.