For More Information
Contact:
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights
310 Fourth Avenue S.
Suite 1000
Minneapolis, MN 55401
Phone: 612-341-3302
Fax: 612-341-2971
e-mail: [email protected]
CHILDRENS RIGHTS PROGRAM
Program Summary
The Childrens Rights Program of Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights promotes and protects the fundamental rights of children through the Child Survival Project and the Campaign Against Forced Child Labor.
The Child Survival Project is using research, documentation and advocacy to expose and combat excessive rates of preventable child deaths as a human rights violation.
A coalition of community members working on the Campaign Against Forced Child Labor seeks to educate retailers and consumers about the harmful effects of child labor and to promote opportunities for working children to attend school.
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Current Initiatives
The Children's Rights Program is working toward the goal of seeking US ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by promoting and providing training about the CRC and raising public awareness. In addition, the Program's US-based advocacy efforts will include the drafting of a "shadow report" on our country's |
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| compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) which will focus on racial disparity in infant mortality rates in the United States and the situation in Minnesota and the Midwest | |
The Child Survival Project completed the critical first phase of its project to document excessive, preventable child mortality as a human rights violation. The Project conducted extensive research using a case-study approach in three countries of varying levels of developmentUganda, Mexico, and the United States. Fact-finding missions to Uganda and Mexico were carried out.
The final report, Global Child Survival: A Human Rights Priority, is currently being considered for publication by the University of Pennsylvania Press. The report analyzes the child survival situation in each country, sets forth the relevant obligations under international human rights law, and recommends ameliorative measures to increase child survival and health.
The Child Survival Project is currently in the process of planning and organizing in-country advocacy projects in Uganda, Mexico and the United States. In the United States, the Project is in the process of planning public and school-based human rights education initiatives based on the US case study.
The One School at a Time Project seeks to educate retailers and consumers about the harmful effects of child labor and to promote opportunities for child laborers to attend school. The Campaign is sustained by a coalition of individual volunteers, organizations, and concerned others. Minnesota Advocates and a volunteer committee have formed a partnership with the village of Sankhu, Nepal to support a Sankhu School. for children who are at high risk of becoming child laborers.
Past Initiatives
Childrens Human Rights Conference: A strategic planning conference to educate the legal community and public about how the Convention on the Rights of the Child applies to Minnesotas children, and to develop practical strategies for implementing the Childrens Rights Convention in Minnesota law and policy was held in 1999..
The Child Survival Project presented two workshops on Child Survival and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Mexico in November and December of 1998. Similar workshops were held in Uganda in May of 1999.
Check out child labor images taken by board member David Parker at http://hsph.harvard.edu/gallery/intro.html
This page was last updated Tuesday, February 05, 2002 03:05:53 PM
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