Call for support for world summit

Press, 19 December 1989, Page 32

Call for support for world summit

PA Wellington New Zealand should support a world summit on children, projected for the second half of 1990, says the president of the New Zealand committee for the United Nations Children’s Fund, Mr Paddy Payne. First suggested by Unicef a year ago, the summit, which was endorsed by more than 100 governments, would bring together presidents and prime ministers from all over the world, Mr Payne said. The top-level meeting is considered necessary by Unicef “to take advantage of the glaring opportunities now available for saving the lives of up to 50 million young children and protecting the growth of many millions more in the decade ahead.” “The world cannot sit back and watch while millions of children die every year as the twentieth century draws to a close,” Mr Payne said.

“Children are not dying from incurable diseases, but from simple illnesses like measles and dehydration which are easily prevented.” A new priority for children had been marked by the forthcoming summit and the Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by the United Nations last month. The convention took ten years to negotiate and is the “Magna Carta for children,” Mr Payne said. It sets minimum international standards of protection for children’s survival, health and education, as well as special protection against exploitation at work, physical or sexual abuse. “Like many such documents in history, it is the statement of an ideal which few nations have yet reached,” Mr Payne said. “But as more and more nations ratify it and enact it into national law, and as the press and public

become more concerned, it may become the standard below which any civilised nation, rich or poor, will be ashamed to fall.” Mr Payne welcomed the release of Unicef’s “The State of the World’s Children” 1990 report which outlined the opportunities for children in the coming decade. The report says the amount the Soviet Union spends on vodka and the United States spend on advertising cigarettes, $2.5 billion annually, would save the almost 8000 children dying every day because they are not immunised. The developing world’s governments are now devoting half their expenditures to debt servicing and military spending. The report says these two activities are costing almost $1 billion every day “or approximately $4OO a year for every family in the developing world.”