I should like to see the Convention on the Rights of Children added to the existing conventions mentioned in this motion for a resolution.

UNICEF - "Convention on the Right of Children"

It is paradoxical that while our legislators can organize to move trade legislation on a fast track, they seem to have great difficulty moving human right agreements like the unratified conventions on the rights of children and women.

But above all, we must insist that the 1989 UN Convention on the rights of children is ratified, implemented and respected immediately, in my country Germany too, for about 30 % of our population is under-age.

The UNO Convention on the rights of children, in common with the recent Conventions of the Hague and the Convention of the Council of Europe in Luxembourg on the abduction of children, have proved ineffectual.

The convention details and specifies many objectives of the almost universally ratified United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children, and complement the widely ratified Hague conventions on Child Abduction and on inter-country adoption.

In January, she met with Senator Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to ask why he was blocking ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children, although Senator Helms has not budged from his position.

Turning to matters more closely connected with the Community institutions, I would like to emphasize again that the Intergovernmental Conference must during the coming months definitely consider the possibility of including in the revised Treaty a chapter containing provisions concerning minors such as those guaranteed by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children.