World Leaders Pledge to Say Yes to Children

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, May 09, 2002

World Leaders Pledge to Say Yes to Children

Leaders from various countries attending the current Special Session of United Nations General Assembly on Children have pledged to join in a global movement called "Say Yes for Children."

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Leaders from various countries attending the current Special Session of United Nations General Assembly on Children have pledged to join in a global movement called "Say Yes for Children."

Speaking at the first plenary meeting of the special session on Wednesday, President of Romania Ion Iliescu said the condition of children could not be separated from the state of the general political, economic and social environment and that Romania would launch a comprehensive examination of all those logical linkages.

"We in Romania take our pledge to say yes to children seriously. Deeds always speak louder than words," he said.

Bernard Makuza, prime minister of Rwanda, said his country had joined in the global movement "Say Yes for Children."

He urged all nations to say "no" to all shameful and degrading practices, such as child exploitation, trafficking in children and the use of children in armed forces.

King Letsie III of Lesotho said the special session came at a critical time when the world was grappling with the threats and challenges facing children. While notable progress had been made, new threats and challenges had surfaced, making it necessary to formulate new strategies and set new goals in a bid to make a world fit for children, he said.

He said a world fit for children meant among other things "a world in which children were not forcibly recruited into military services." Above all, it meant a world in which children were not orphaned due to AIDS and war, he added.

He expressed the hope that the United Nations system and the international community would continue to assist Lesotho in helping to achieve children's rights.

Nambar Enkhbayar, prime minister of Mongolia, said it was absolutely unacceptable that at a time of unprecedented global prosperity and opportunity, 600 million children struggled to survive on one U.S. dollar a day; more than 10 million still died each year, often from readily preventable causes; 170 million were still malnourished; and nearly 120 million of them had never seen the inside of a school.

To redress the depressing situation, the world must invest generously in children, he said.

Pedro Verona Rodrigues Pires, president of Cape Verde, said that despite all the efforts undertaken since the 1990 summit, millions of children continued to die each year from clearly avoidable causes.

He said he was convinced that investing in children was the one guarantee for the success of all human kind. "The international community should work to build a better world where justice for children would not depend on the color of their skin or social status," he said, adding that actions on behalf of children should be rooted in international legitimacy to ensure that the youth of today would be able to overcome hatred and marginalization.

Candido Muatetema Rivas, prime minister of Equatorial Guinea, said a careful analysis of the situation revealed that the world faced an imminent disaster that would be the result of the actions of human beings themselves and of which children would be the victims.

Crown Prince Albert of Monaco said the present international situation and the deteriorating economic and social conditions in many countries made it unavoidable to emphasize the need to respect and protect the rights of children. "States should make efforts at the national and international levels to reinforce all available means, including legal measures, to strengthen the prosecution and punishment to those who perpetrated unnatural crimes against children," he said.

Sheikha Mozan Bint Nasser Al-Misnad, president of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs of Qatar, said that it required genuine political will and the mobilization of the necessary resources to achieve children's rights. "It was the responsibility of the international community to divert part of the indebtedness of those states to U.N. Children's Fund to be invested according to an institutional scheme in the development fields that affected children," he added.

Suzanne Mubarak, chairperson of the delegation of Egypt, appealed for collective responsibility in ending the human rights violations, stemming the bloodshed in the Palestinian territories and seeking peaceful and just solutions to provide a safe life for the children, regardless of their affiliation or nationality.

The three-day special session will present participants with a detailed review of what has been achieved and what has remained undone since the 1990 World Summit for Children. A declaration and a plan of action are expected to be adopted at the end of the session.

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