Thank you Madame Chairperson, My delegation would like to express our appreciation to you and to the secretariat, headed by Ms. Bellamy, for your excellent work in preparing the World Summit for Children. Israel is pleased to participate in the important work of the Preparatory Committee. As a country, Israel has long believed that the way a society treats its children is a mirror of its own values.
Childhood is a golden age, a paradise of innocence and dreams.
And yet for too many, this period has become a lost paradise, where dreams are squashed by the cold reality of disease, poverty, neglect and abuse. For this reason, we have long supported the efforts of the international community to codify a set of standards for treatment of children, including the landmark Convention on the Rights of the Child. That set of a flurry of activity in the judicial and legislative realms aimed at solidifying and extending Israeli society's commitment to the principles of the Convention. This included harsher penalties for unlawful treatment of children, a recognition that emotional damage is punishable by law, the determination that corporal punishment is an unacceptable method of child rearing, the establishment of a special committee to recommend revisions to existing legislation for the protection of children, and the establishment of commissions on the status of the child in every municipality in the country. Israel has also been involved in a number of international initiatives on this issue as well.