Tag Archives: U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child

1 in 3 of World’s Poorest Countries Spend More on Debt Repayments Than Education

“There is clearly a moral imperative for the world to act now to ensure that all children are in school and learning,” says a new report from Save the Children. “But there is also an economic imperative.”

By Brett Wilkins  Published 10-11-2022 by Common Dreams

School kids in northern Zimbabwe, Africa. Photo: Trey Ratcliff/flickr/CC

A report published this week by Save the Children revealed that 1 in 3 of the world’s poorest nations spend more on paying off debt to wealthy countries and investors than on educating its own children.

The U.K.-based charity’s report—entitled Fixing a Broken System: Transforming Education Financing—shows that 21 out of 70 low- and lower-middle-income countries with available data spent more on external debt repayment than on education in 2020. According to the publication, interest payments are expected to account for an average of 10% of the annual budget in this category of countries by 2024, up from 7% in 2015. Continue reading

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Trump’s Child Separation Policy “Absolutely” Violated International Law Says UN Expert

The way the Trump administration was “separating infants from their families only in order to deter irregular migration from Central America to the United States of America, for me, constitutes inhuman and degrading treatment.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-18-2019

Screenshot: ABC News

The Trump administration violated international law when it separated migrant children from their families, a United Nations expert said Monday.

That’s not all, said Manfred Nowak, the independent expert leading a global study on children deprived of liberty. With over 100,000 children still in migration-related detention, the United States leads the world with the highest number of children in migration-related custody in the world. Continue reading

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UN Calls on US to ‘Immediately Halt’ Policy of Tearing Children Away From Parents

The human rights office says the practice “amounts to arbitrary and unlawful interference in family life, and is a serious violation of the rights of the child.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 6-5-2018

Photo: ACLU

The United Nations human rights office on Tuesday demanded that the Trump administration “immediately halt” its policy of tearing migrant children away from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, declaring that the practice “always constitutes a child rights violation.”

Under the administration’s so-called zero tolerance policy, unveiled last month by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, border agents separate children from their parents at the border and prosecute the adults. The approach, which is being framed as a deterrent to stop migrants from attempting to enter the country, has been widely denounced as “evil” and spurred protests from immigrant rights advocates. Continue reading

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