by Will

    Men and women, delegates of the United Nations. I am a child. I am here to represent our kind. My name is Will, from Canada, and I am here to speak to you about children rights.

In school we are learning about the rights of children. In the year 1989, the United Nations laid down a set of rules for children everywhere. These rights were designed to help make the children feel that the world was a safer place. Now here we are in the year 2002 and we are here to decide if these rules are working. I learned that we have the rights to freedom of speech and that we have the rights to go to school and to be free of slavery. We also have the right to freedom of worship and freedom from fear.

A lot of work has been done to help the children ever since the children rights were created. Child slavery only exists in a few countries, which is a lot less than what used to be like. Forty percent more of each countries children now go to school because the government know has a program for less fortunate families. My mother works in a program; funded in Canada, by the government that takes families who do not make to much money and have no dental plan and gives it to them. Another helpful program is a program that gives children who do not have food, three good healthy, hearty meals a day. These sorts of plans are active all over the world in many different places. The literacy rate in Japan for Children have gone up by thirty percent and child slavery worldwide has gone down by seventy percent. These statistics are amazing! Many Children can go to church because they have the right to worship. For children in other countries we have missionaries to explain religion and then the children choose if they would like to Worship. Children have the right to a Guardian or parent, or in the terms of the declaration "Someone to give proper direction or guidance". And this law has made an impact. There are not many children left in the streets any more. This is wonderful. The 1989 has fulfilled many of it’s promise.

Many, many, many rights still have not been met in less fortunate countries. Only one out of twenty children in Afghanistan can read and those who can are able to read only a couple of words. In Africa children still sleep and live in poverty. This is a horrible thing. There are many important programs which help these children but I think that they need a little more help. There are also many children in Albania who don’t get a descent meal each day. They eat very little and most of them don’t eat at all. Most go to school hungry. Actually not very many go to school at all. Most children in Africa can’t even read or write not to mention calculate math. Many children are born into Mexico each year and are denied of the right to a name. In Japan there is much child slavery. Children are enslaved to make wallets and basketballs for Nike just because it’s cheaper than hiring workers. This is cruel and inhuman. In Jamaica children do not get the health benefits that a much better off country would have. For them Dental care is a far away dream. So is welcome home which builds houses. We still need to do a lot to make this world a (almost perfect) place you want to live in.

I think that a way that we could help is by funding for food for poorer countries. We could also bring food from other countries to the poorer one.

Another way that we could help is by hiring more people to work for a country that way the children would be free of child slavery.

A lot has been said, most of it done, but we still think that in a little while longer this world will be a perfectly safe place for…us kids!