When Kula Koenig was 6 years old, civil war broke out in her
home country of Liberia.
She and several of her family members escaped northward to
Guinea, where she spent almost two years of her childhood battling
malnutrition and malaria before being granted admission to the
U.S.
Koenig was one of the lucky ones.
UNICEF at UCLA’s Universal Children’s Day Forum on
Tuesday night focused on the ongoing human rights violations
children still suffer worldwide.
Anthropology Professor Nandini Gunawardena and a panel of
students ““ which included Koenig, who is now a fourth-year
English student and the co-chair of UNICEF at UCLA ““
discussed the effectiveness of a United Nations resolution adopted
in 1959: the Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
The declaration calls for all children to have “adequate
nutrition, housing, recreation and medical services,” as well
as free education and protection against “all forms of
neglect, cruelty and exploitation.”
It also emphasizes the need for a discrimination-free, caring,
familial environment and forbids underage children to work.
While the resolution lays out admirable goals, the panelists
agreed, little can be done to enforce them.
Gunawardena said the international community’s priorities
are too focused on monetary profit to prioritize human rights.
“It’s an issue of reversing the power inequities of
globalization,” she said, noting that fair trade should be
promoted and financial power should be used to give countries an
incentive to support human rights.
“I think consumption boycotts is the tool,”
Gunawardena said.
Panelist Baylee DeCastro, the chair of the Feminist Leadership
Majority Alliance and a UCLA alumna, linked children’s rights
to women’s reproductive rights, saying that unwanted children
are at higher risk of suffering rights violations.
“Orphans are more vulnerable to being recruited by rebel
movements, … to AIDS and trafficking,” she said.
Gunawardena said some 300,000 children worldwide are currently
involved in war as combatants.
There are reports of child soldiers as young as 7 years old,
said panelist Tom Fonss, a representative from Amnesty
International and a fourth-year theater student.
The panel also discussed whether the U.S., which has not signed
the declaration, should spend more time focusing on
children’s rights.
“America is not perfect. There are still changes that have
to be made,” Fonss said.
“There are so many education inequities,” Fonss
said, adding that children from low-income areas, such as the Watts
district of Los Angeles, learn to read much more slowly than
children with wealthier families.
“By the time they’re in fourth grade, they’re
three grades behind (their high-income counterparts),” he
said.