Foreword: Crossing Borders

• Author: Maria Grahn-Farley
• Position: Special symposium editor
• Pages: 658-664

Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, University of California Humanities Research Institute's Sawyer Seminar Program Redress in Social Thought, Law, and Literature (2002-2003). Visiting Adjunct Professor, Golden Gate University School of Law (2001-2002).. Former member of the National Board of Rdda Barnen (Save the Children, Sweden). LL.M. Gothenburg University School of Economics and Commercial Law, Sweden. I want to thank my husband Anthony P. Farley for his support of this symposium.

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This collection of child rights essays is organized around the theme of crossing borders. The border crossings occur in three ways. As indicated by the title of this collection, "International Child Rights at Home and Abroad," the first border to cross is the one between the national and the international. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)¹ is a universally adopted international human rights treaty.² In fact, it is the most ratified treaty in the world.³ Every nation state in the world (191 nation states), except the United States and Somalia, is a party to this treaty⁴. The wide ratification and unanimous adoption by the General Assembly in November 1989⁵ brought child rights into a field that cannot be contained by national borders. The CRC calls for international cooperation in the efforts to fulfill the rights set forth in the CRC.⁶ The CRC does not limit the responsibility for the well being of the child to a nation state, a family, or a parent; the CRC calls on all adults to take on the responsibility and the obligation to fulfill the CRC for all children.⁷ This leads to the second border.

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The border between the adult and the child is the next one to cross. All three essays in this collection concern the crossing of the border between the adult and the child. The CRC is a unique human rights treaty, not only in its universality, but also in its paradigmatic shift from looking at the child as a passive object based on her needs to looking at the child as an active subject and bearer of her own rights.⁸ The CRC is the first international child rights document to include the traditional civil and political rights, the freedom of expression,⁹ the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion,¹⁰ and the freedom of association and peaceful assembly.¹¹

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The CRC addresses the imbalance of the power relationship between adults and children through an additional article that supports the realization of the civil and political rights in the CRC. Article 12 establishes a general right of the child to participate and be heard in situations concerning the child.¹² Article 12 is the article in the CRC that has most influenced the field of child rights to change the focus from looking at the child as an object of needs to a subject and bearer of her own rights.¹³

According to the CRC, adults are not only obligated to make the best interest of the child a primary consideration in their decision-making,¹⁴ but also to treat every child equally and without discrimination.¹⁵ One part ofPage 661 the child's right to life is the right to survival and development as a human being.¹⁶ To be able to develop as a human being, the child has to be heard and her opinions have to be respected; in other words, the child has a right to participate in civic life. This right encourages and obligates adults to make it possible for children to cross the borders between what traditionally might be perceived as the "adult sphere" and the "child sphere." As the essays of this collection will demonstrate, the paradigmatic shift from looking at children as objects of adult care to subjects with their own rights affects the way society looks at the right to education, the right to health care, and the right to protection from discrimination. This paradigmatic shift can be seen in Professor Leslie Burton's essay about the Roma children's right to education in the Czech Republic, in Mr. Jason Hight's essay about the right to life and education as it relates to sex and AIDS education of school children in the U.S., and in Ms. Jennifer Phillip's essay about the right of the child in the U.S. to health care and participation in medical decisions.

The third border to cross is the one between the lawyer and the activist. The CRC came out of an unprecedented co-operation that bridged the gulf between activists and legislators. The drafting process of the CRC took place in the Open Working Group, which included representatives of national states and non-governmental organizations as well as inter governmental organizations.¹⁷ The CRC is as much the tool of the activist as it is the instrument of the lawyer. The realization of the rights set forth in the CRC can only occur through practical steps made in the places of the everyday lives of the people the CRC concerns - the children. It is by changing the way that adults relate to children and the way that children relate to adults on all levels of society that the CRC will be realized and the practical lives of children will be improved. When construing programs and policies for children the required shift is from a situation in which adults decide what is good for children to a situation in which adults include the opinions of children. The opinion of Children should be included when making decisions in the family, in the community, in thePage 662 national parliament, and in the international arena. Furthermore, the opinion of the children should be considered when constructing programs and policies for children, whether they are health care programs or educational programs. It is only by making children a part of civil life that the rights set forth in the CRC will become a reality, a reality occasioned by the transformation of the interpretations of the lawyers and the hands of the activists.¹⁸

The CRC is not only the most ratified human rights...