The best mankind has to give.

The best mankind has to give

"Mankind owes to the child the best it has to give", the Declaration on the Rights of the Child proclaimed 30 years ago, recognizing at the same time that children are the best mankind has to give to the future.

A child taking her first steps or saying his first word is a sight both ordinary and miraculous. A girl forced by hunger to work all day in swampy, mosquito-infected rice paddies or to prostitute herself on the streets of a third world metropolis, a boy pushed into drug peddling and mindless violence by the despair of the developed world's urban ghettos--these are sights both common and unbearably cruel, because nothing can be more cruel than to destroy the future.

Child care for working mothers, physical and emotional abuse, and teen-age pregnancy and drug addiction are already important political issues in many developed countries.

In the developing world, more children than ever are now surviving beyond their first five years. These children are alive thanks to massive and successful anti-diarrhoeal and immunization campaigns spearheaded by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). But what will happen after these first crucial years?

Child survival--beyond survival--is increasingly the focus of attention of UNICEF and developing nations. This concern is echoed by the draft Convention on the Rights of the Child, to be adopted later this year by the General Assembly. The Convention, which deals with all aspects of a child's development, from education and health to work and recreation, shows that the human rights of children do not end at birth.