Universal Children’s Day is November 20, 2021.

The theme for this year is “Investing in our future means investing in our children.”

Universal Children’s Day was established in 1954 by the United Nations to promote international togetherness and awareness among children worldwide.

UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, an organization dedicated to improving the welfare of children all over the world is responsible for promoting and coordinating this special day.

Reverend Dr. Charles Leonard, pastor of the Universalist Church of the Redeemer in Chelsea, Massachusetts held a special service dedicated to, and for the children of his community on the second Sunday of June in 1857. He named the celebration Rose Day. The name was later changed to Flower Sunday, and eventually named Children’s Day.

Children’s Day became a national holiday in the Republic of Turkey on April 23, 1920.

Five years after the United Nations established Universal Children’s Day, the UN General Assembly established an extended version of the League of Nations’ “Declaration of the Rights of the Child.”

These original rights include:

1.    The child must be given the means requisite for its normal development, both materially and spiritually

2.    The child that is hungry must be fed, the child that is sick must be nursed, the child that is backward must be helped, the delinquent child must be reclaimed, and the orphan and the waif must be sheltered and succored.

3.    The child must be the first to receive relief in times of distress.

4.    The child must be put in a position to earn a livelihood and must be protected against every form of exploitation.

5.    The child must be brought up in the consciousness that its talents must be devoted to the service of its fellow men.

To these rights the UN added ten additional principles and accepted a resolution proposed by Afghanistan calling for all governments to publicly recognize these rights and strive for their acceptance.

On November 1989, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC). This human rights treaty defines the civil, political, economic, social, health, and cultural rights of children. It deals with child-specific needs and rights and requires all nations that ratify it to be bound to it by international law and must act within the best interests of the child. In 2012, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon led the initiative for the education of children. He established the goal for every child to be able to attend school by 2015 and recommended nations improve the quality of education being received in their schools. He also stressed the importance of implementing policies regarding education to promote peace, respect, and environmental concern. 

Where are we now with these goals and how much have we done to uphold the rights of children across the world?

1.    An estimated 264 million children still do not go to school.

2.    Ninety percent of children with disabilities do not go to school. In addition to lack of adequate transportation to and from school, they face inaccessible buildings and inaccessible bathrooms because of a lack of infrastructure. They don’t have access to adequate materials or trained teachers. They are often stigmatized by society for their disabilities because of ignorance or superstition.

3.    It’s estimated there are 1 billion people around the world with disabilities, and at least 1 in 10 are children.

4.    150 million children worldwide are engaged in child labor and may never have the chance to be children.

5.    The average cost a day per child in developing countries to provide a full cycle of pre-primary through secondary education is $1.25.

6.    According to Save the Children, Singapore topped all other countries, ranking 989 out of 1000 in 2019 for the fewest children missing out on childhood.

7.    On the same scale, Niger ranked 375, the lowest of all countries for the most children missing out on childhood in 2019.

8.    The United States ranked 43 in helping children reach their full potential in a 2019 report by Save The Children, badly trailing nearly all other advanced countries

9.    26 million children are out of school in Ethiopia because of the coronavirus pandemic

10. An estimated 99% of children worldwide (2.3 billion) live in one of the 186 countries that have implemented some form of restrictions due to COVID-19.

It looks like there’s still a lot of work to be done to improve the lives of children here and around the world. What will you do to help your children and the children in your community stay safe and reach their full potential? 

Sources for this article:

https://nationaltoday.com/universal-childrens-day