Child’s Right Committee Urges Intrusions Upon the Rights of Parents

By Austin Ruse

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM) Conventions negotiated by UN Member States generally establish committees before which governments must report on their progress in implementing the convention. Committee members tend to come from the ranks of liberal policy makers and academics. Governments and NGOs have complained repeatedly at what they see as the sometimes heavy-handed and ideological treatment they have received before these committees.

     Among the most notorious committees has been the one established by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) which has at various times criticized Belarus for establishing Mother's Day, directed Libya to reinterpret the Koran so as to fall within committee guidelines, and directed Kygystan to legalize lesbianism. Committees have no power to enforce their directives, but their reports are an ongoing source of criticism of the governments who are not living up to the desires of the committee members.

     One of the complaints against the committees is their tendency to reinterpret the original convention, sometimes in complete contradiction to the convention itself. CEDAW, for instance, formally condemns prostitution yet the CEDAW committee directed China to legalize prostitution.

     Lesser known than the CEDAW committee yet no less controversial is the Committee on the Rights of the Child that has handed down a number of reports that governments and human rights attorneys find troubling. Most of the controversial decisions of the Child Committee are directed at the rights of parents. A series of human rights instruments guarantee parents broad latitude in directing the lives of their children.

     According to human rights attorney Kathryn Balmforth, "the Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly protects the prior right of parents to choose the kind of education that is given to their children, and gives the right of parents in that regard priority over all others." Balmforth points out that the implementing treaties of the Universal Declaration — the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – "are even more specific in protecting the liberty of parents.to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions."

     In the early days of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, Balmforth says it was "quite deferential to the rights of parents, but this deference has disappeared over time." In 1995 the Committee found the United Kingdom out of compliance because parents were allowed to withdraw their children from portions of sex education programs that the parents found objectionable. Balmforth says the Committee is now routinely calling for greater access to reproductive health counseling, sex education and services, without mentioning any right of the parents.

     Such ongoing overreaching by UN Committees will play a part in upcoming negotiations.

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