Canadian social workers call for national strategy on children |
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National Child Day Leaves Many Families Asking When Celebrations Will Begin
Since its adoption by the United Nations in 1989, the Convention of the Rights of the Child has been signed or ratified by more countries, including Canada, than any other international treaty. This is not surprising: could anyone disagree that children are entitled to protection, health, education, play, a voice, and support of their best interest?
Given the knowledge of the impact poverty has on children and families, it is also not surprising that the all-parties Canadian resolution adopted in 1989 to end child poverty by 2000 has been a banner for so many lobbying efforts in Canada over two decades. Yet, despite the Canadian government’s international and national commitments to children and the economic means to uphold those commitments, the basic rights of children continue to go unmet.
• Nearly one in six children lives in poverty in Canada.
• Rates of substantiated child maltreatment in Canada, excluding Quebec, increased by 125% from 1998 to 2003.
• The average income of female lone-parent families in Canada in 2001 was less than half the income of two-parent families with children.
• 34.5% of Black women in families are poor. This compares to 13.7% of all women in families.
• Every year throughout the world more than 10 million children die of hunger and preventable diseases – this is more than 30,000 per day, or one child every three seconds.
Every day, and in particular today on the eve of National Child Day, we urge government to implement, and not just discuss, a national strategy for early childhood education; social programs such as housing initiatives, child benefits, and an adequate minimum wage to address the needs of vulnerable children and families within Canada; and international commitments to increase overseas development assistance to 0.7% of the gross national income.
November 20th marks Universal Children’s Day and, within Canada, National Child Day. This is yet another opportunity not only to highlight the needs of children but also to demand that governments and Members of Parliament use their political will to ensure that next year’s National Child Day is a celebration of success rather than another cry for help.
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page last updated on 19.11.2005
