Lois Whitman Executive Director for the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch Despite nearly universal ratification of the Convention, millions of children receive no education, work long hours under hazardous conditions, or languish in inhumane conditions in institutions. Others endure harassment and physical abuse by police, are subject to trafficking and sexual exploitation, or are forced to become soldiers or refugees from armed conflict. For too many children, the promises of the Convention remain hollow, and the abuses they endure every day contradict the commitments made by their governments. Every recognized country of the world, except the United States and the collapsed state of Somalia, has ratified the Convention, making it the single most widely ratified treaty in existence. It undermines the U.S.'s credibility as a nation that cares about children.
Children make up over half of the world's refugees.
They are also subject to hazardous labor exploitation, physical abuse, denial of education, sexual violence and exploitation, cross-border attacks and recruitment as child soldiers. Street children throughout the world are subjected to routine harassment and physical abuse by police, government and private security forces, who seek to clean the streets of a perceived social blight. Street children face extortion, theft, severe beatings, mutilation, sexual abuse and even death. Six countries, including the United States, are known to have executed juvenile offenders during the past decade. In some cases, such children are deprived of adequate food and basic medical care, an adequate education, and subjected to appalling levels of cruelty and sometimes deadly neglect.