IV
103D CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. CON. RES. 15
Expressing the sense of the Congress regarding the need for the President
to seek the Senate’s advice and consent to ratification of the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JANUARY 6, 1993
Mr. SANDERS (for himself, Mr. ANDREWS of Maine, Mr. BRYANT, Mr. COLE-
MAN, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. DEFAZIO, Mr. DELLUMS, Mr. EVANS, Mr.
FRANK of Massachusetts, Mr. GONZALEZ, Mr. HALL of Ohio, Mr. HEF-
NER, Mr. HINCHEY, Mr. JOHNSTON of Florida, Mrs. KENNELLY, Mr.
MCCLOSKEY, Mr. MCDERMOTT, Mrs. MALONEY, Mr. MARTINEZ, Ms.
MEEK, Mr. MFUME, Mrs. MINK, Mrs. MORELLA, Mr. OBERSTAR, Mr.
RANGEL, Mr. ROEMER, Mrs. SCHROEDER, Mr. SCHUMER, Mr. SHAYS,
Mr. STARK, Mr. TRAFICANT, Mrs. UNSOELD, Mr. WAXMAN, Mr.
PALLONE, and Mr. FOGLIETTA) submitted the following concurrent reso-
lution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the Congress regarding the need
for the President to seek the Senate’s advice and consent
to ratification of the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of the Child.
Whereas in 1990, 1 in 5 children in the United States lived
in poverty;
Whereas during the 1980s the United States had the worst
child poverty rate among Western industrialized nations
surveyed in a 1991 study;
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Whereas it is estimated that every night in the United States
at least 100,000 children go to sleep homeless;
Whereas 1 in 10 infants, and 1 in 5 African-American in-
fants, living in the United States has no routine source
of health care;
Whereas the United States has the world’s largest Gross Na-
tional Product, yet American children rank below the top
15 nations in regard to their health and well-being;
Whereas in 1989, the infant mortality rate for the United
States ranked 19th in the world, behind Singapore,
Spain, and Ireland;
Whereas from 1980 through 1988, the number of babies born
in the United States with low birthweights ranked the
United States 29th in the world;
Whereas in immunizing its children the United States ranks
17th in the world;
Whereas in the next 4 years, approximately 144,000 babies
will die in the United States before their 1st birthday;
Whereas the National Commission on Children has declared
that ‘‘Every child in America needs an excellent edu-
cation . . . yet approximately 40 percent of the Nation’s
children are at risk of school failure’’ and ‘‘American stu-
dents continue to lag behind their counterparts in many
developed and developing nations in standardized meas-
ures of reading, math, and science’’;
Whereas an estimated 407,000 children in the United States,
almost a 50 percent increase since 1986, depend on an
overwhelmed, inadequate foster care system;
Whereas in the United States, 2,600,000 children were re-
ported to be abused and neglected in 1991;
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Whereas it is estimated that 1,800,000 teenagers were vic-
tims of violent crimes in the United States in 1988;
Whereas the Supreme Court has never fully articulated the
range of rights to be accorded to children under the
United States Constitution or fully articulated the man-
ner in which the Constitution is applicable to minors;
Whereas the positive futures of our families, communities,
and Nation are dependent on the full and healthy devel-
opment of our children;
Whereas the United States actively participated in the draft-
ing of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of
the Child and was the main proponent of many of the
Convention’s articles;
Whereas in November 1989, the United States and other
members of the General Assembly of the United Nations
unanimously endorsed the Convention on the Rights of
the Child, which codified society’s responsibilities to chil-
dren in setting minimum standards for survival, health,
education, certain protection against violence and exploi-
tation, and respect for the child’s dignity;
Whereas as of May 1992, 117 countries had become state
parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child by
ratification or accession, and 29 others had signed the
Convention indicating their intention to ratify the Con-
vention in the future;
Whereas the United States is the only Western industrialized
Nation which has neither signed nor ratified the Conven-
tion on the Rights of the Child, and the United States
joins Iraq, South Africa, Libya, and Cambodia as 1 of
fewer than 30 of the 178 member states of the United
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Nations which neither is a state party to the Convention
nor has signed it;
Whereas the issue of children’s rights and their well-being is
important both to the United States and the world at
large;
Whereas it is essential that the United States sign and ratify
the Convention on the Rights of the Child and begin to
implement the Convention’s legal standards in order to
improve and protect the lives of children in this country
and abroad and for our Nation to be credible as a pro-
ponent of human rights;
Whereas at the World Summit for Children in September
1990, the United States signed the World Declaration on
the Survival, Protection and Development of Children,
which included a commitment to ‘‘work to promote the
earliest possible ratification and implementation on the
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child’’;
and
Whereas the House of Representatives passed a resolution
during the 101st Congress urging the President to seek
the consent of the Senate to ratification of the Conven-
tion on the Rights of the Child, but such action having
not occurred, it is necessary that the Congress implore
the President to take action on the Convention: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that the
President should promptly seek the advice and consent of
the Senate to ratification of the Convention on the Rights
of the Child, adopted by the United Nations General As-
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sembly with the support of the United States on
November 20, 1989.
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