Dr Philip Veerman

President, Defence for Children International

Director, DCI-Israel

Seventy-five years ago, children’s rights were proclaimed on an international level for the first time: the League of Nations adopted the Geneva Declaration on the rights of the child in 1924.

The predecessors of the IFCW played an important role in in promoting the rights of the child at the international governmental level. The child, however, was viewed only as a subject of rights in need of protection.

In 1989 the UN General Assembly adopted the new UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, whereby children now also had "participation rights". DCI played an important role in coordinating the input of NGO’s into the draft text in the period between 1979 and 1989.

The IFCW was created following DCI’s 1989 general assembly in Haikko, Finland, and can be seen as the successor of pioneering organisations such as the International Union for Child Welfare.

This paper places "participation rights" in their historical perspective by citing the pioneering organisa5tions that proceeded IFCW : The Save the Children International Union, the International Union of Child Welfare, Defence for Children International etc. However, the presentation looks also to the future.

Now that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has been almost universally ratified (Only Somalia and the United States having failed to do so), and some states have already discussed their second report with the committee, what tasks lie ahead?

Progress is intimately linked with a more just world order, reduction of poverty, and the reduction of armed conflict. What progress can we realistically expect? What should be our top priorities? What action should we take?

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