1990 UNITED NATIONS WORLD SUMMIT FOR CHILDREN

WHEREAS, the AFT, in convention resolutions "Children in Poverty" (1988) and "Children in Need" (1990), called for national attention to the urgent needs of children in the United States; and

WHEREAS, the United Nations has convened a World Summit for Children in September 1990 with the goal of moving children to the top of the international political agenda; and

WHEREAS, the United Nations, through the United Nations Children Agency (UNICEF), is seeking in this decade to bring attention to the 40,000 children who die each day from lack of food, shelter or primary health care, and the more than 10 million children who are refugees of war and conflict, and the 80 million children who live in the world's streets; and

WHEREAS, President Bush will attend the Summit, along with heads of state or government from over 60 countries; and

WHEREAS, world leaders participating in the summit will also be asked to promote the ratification and im­plementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, unanimously adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in November 1989 and to which the United States is not yet a signatory; and

WHEREAS, among the rights of children that the World Summit and Convention on the Rights of the Child emphasize is the right to an education on the basis of equal opportunity; and

WHEREAS, the Convention also provides for the protection of children from economic exploitation, from performing any potentially hazardous work, and from work that interferes with a child's education or prevents children from attending school; yet the scourge of child labor is increasing, even in industrial employment, in many countries, some of which are signatories to the Convention on the Rights of the Child:

RESOLVED, that AFT urge President Bush and the Congress to immediately notify and implement the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child; and

RESOLVED, that AFT, endorse the World Summit for Children and urge President Bush to fully participate in the Summit taking with him a full agenda of action for children in the United States, incorporating a comprehensive support program that assures the fulfillment of the national goals adopted by President Bush and state governors; and

RESOLVED, that AFT call upon the United Nations, and UNICEF in particular, to ensure that the Convention on the Rights of the Child will be the basis for implementation of ILO conventions prohibiting child labor.