Two decades ago at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, 12-year-old Severn Suzuki reminded world leaders: “Do not forget why you are attending these conferences, who you are doing this for—we are your own children. You are deciding what kind of a world we will grow up in.”
The follow-up to the Earth Summit, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) took place in Brazil on June 20-22, 2012. Children’s rights truly came of age in Rio and were featured prominently through both a dedicated session at the Corporate Sustainability Forum and the Forum’s own outcome document.

Children in Brazil are learning how to advocate for their rights. Through the Urban Platform Program, young people are being trained in the skills of communications, advocacy, community organizing, and leadership. This intensive work takes place in Rio and São Paolo’s favelas, which are some of the most notorious urban slums in the world. We are grateful to have The Prudential Foundation as a partner supporting the Urban Platform Program, and when they visited Rio de Janeiro with me they were awed at these young people who were making their voices heard.

UNICEF and the Special Olympics share a common belief that kids with disabilities, deserve the same rights and the same chances as anybody else. Unfortunately, children with disabilities are frequent targets of discrimination and neglect, denied essential services such as health care and education, and extremely vulnerable to violence, abuse and exploitation. Both Special Olympics and UNICEF are committed to tackling the discrimination that keeps children with disabilities on the margins of society, and promoting their rights as equal and active members of their communities. One of the key priorities of the partnership is to push for the ratification and implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Adopted in 2006, the treaty is the first legally binding instrument with comprehensive protection of the rights of persons with disabilities.

I am a veteran classroom teacher who has found a new home at the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. While I love my new job duties of designing and promoting resources and trainings for teachers, nothing will ever compare to teaching a great lesson to young, eager minds.

As you know from our advocacy page on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), as a member of the Campaign for U.S. Ratification of the CRC, we continue to urge the Obama Administration to move the treaty ratification process forward. A couple of items that came across my desk recently reminded me that Americans of good conscience also believe we can better support children both in this country and around the world by ratifying the CRC.

In April, New York State Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee and 30 of her colleagues sent a letter to President Obama and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, urging them to move forward with CRC ratification. These state legislators noted that the ratifying the CRC would reinforce our Nation’s commitment to children everywhere, and provide us with a set of standards and principles to address issues that children face here in the United States. “Whenever a child’s most basic rights are being denied or abused anywhere, we are obligated as a Nation to act,” said Assemblywoman Jaffee. “Our leaders must recognize our moral role in the world to stand up for the rights of children both in and outside of our borders.”

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. But much more needs to be done to include and support the disabled community–in developing countries and here in the U.S.