At the service of children.

• Author: Pioli, Ulises
• Position: Inter-American System

The Americas, home to an enormous concentration of young people alive with hope and frustration, have historically shown a special concern for the well-being of their boys and girls. In 1927, long before the United Nations set up its own prestigious agency, UNICEF, ten American countries had established what later became the Inter-American Children's Institute (Instituto Interamericano del Nino--IIN) in Montevideo, Uruguay. In 1948, the IIN became an OAS specialized organization. The seventy-fifth anniversary of its original founding, at the initiative of an outstanding group of regional specialists, headed by the Uruguayan pediatrician Luis Morquio, was celebrated last June.

Visualized front the beginning as a center for studies, documentation, consultation, and promotion of all aspects of childhood in the Americas, the IIN supports the basic objectives of its member states, as adapted to their changing needs, to promote the well-being of children and adolescents. The IIN functions as a critical conscience, seeking to strengthen the political will of decision-makers in order to reverse the conditions of poverty and inequality affecting the majority of children and young adults in the region.

"At present, the region of the Americas is perhaps the one that shows the the highest rate of inequality," says IIN director general Alejandro Bonasso. "Our efforts should be oriented toward narrowing existing gaps, particularly as they affect childhood," he adds. "The region also shows a contradictory scenario: Side by side with immense natural resources, millions of children subsist in extreme poverty, beset by multiple social pathologies that prevent them from exercising their citizen rights as true subjects of the law."

As for the legal instruments protecting the rights of children, the IIN director general believes that "the international community has been sensitive and receptive. The most palpable proof of this is the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by 191 member countries--the greatest response ever received to a legal instrument of this kind. Yet solutions must also take into account the adequacy of national juridical standards. In an increasingly globalized world, in which problems tend to spread from country to country, it is essential to exchange and share our policies on children, endeavoring to increase our sensitivity to problems and our effective implementation of solutions."

The IIN's current cooperation...