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Child
labor and poverty are inevitably bound together
and if you continue to use the labor of children
as the treatment for the social disease of
poverty, you will have both poverty and child
labor to the end of time.
-- Grace
Abbott
The
first and continuing argument for the curtailment
of working hours and the raising of the minimum
age was that education was necessary in a
democracy and working children could not attend
school.
-- Grace
Abbott
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"There
is no trust more sacred than the one the
world holds with children. There is no duty
more important than ensuring that their
rights are respected, that their welfare
is protected, that their lives are free
from fear and want and that they can grow
up in peace."
-- Kofi
Annan
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"Children
do not constitute anyone's property: they are neither
the property of their parents nor even of society.
They belong only to their own future freedom."
-- Mikhail Bakunin
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"These
children and their parents know that getting
an education is not only their right, but
a passport to a better future - for the children
and for the country."
-- Harry
Belafonte
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"These
children and their parents know that getting an education
is not only their right, but a passport to a better
future - for the children and for the country. Kenya's
decision to abolish school fees is a shining example
of just what can be achieved in the developing world
by sheer political will."
-- Harry
Belafonte
"Children
who have lost parents to HIV/AIDS are not only just
as deserving of an education as any other children,
but they may need that education even more. Being
part of a school environment will prepare them for
the future, while helping to remove the stigma and
discrimination unfortunately associated with AIDS."
-- Harry
Belafonte
"...in
serving the best interests of children,
we serve the best interests of all humanity."
-- Carol
Bellamy
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"Creating
a world that is truly fit for children does not imply
simply the absence of war. It means having the confidence
that our children would not die of measles or malaria.
It means having access to clean water and proper sanitation.
It means having primary schools nearby that educate
children, free of charge. It means changing the world
with children, ensuring their right to participate,
and that their views are heard and considered. It
means building a world fit for children, where every
child can grow to adulthood in health, peace and dignity."
-- Carol
Bellamy
"The economic benefits of investing in children
have been extensively documented. Investing fully
in children today will ensure the well-being and productivity
of future generations for decades to come. By contrast,
the physical, emotional and intellectual impairment
that poverty inflicts on children canmean a lifetime
of suffering and want – and a legacy of poverty for
the next generation… "
-- Carol
Bellamy
“…Together
let us build the global alliance to realize that goal,
secure in the knowledge that in serving the best interests
of children, we serve the best interests of all humanity.
-- Carol
Bellamy
“When
the lives and the rights of children are at stake,
there must be no silent witnesses.”
“What
is needed now are increased efforts to promote youth
participation and commitment; more services aimed
at youth; more parental involvement; more education
and information, using schools and other sites; more
protection for girls, orphaned children and young
women;and more partnerships with people with HIV and
AIDS.“
-- Carol
Bellamy
“Despite
the threat of global terror hanging over all of us,
there is only one path: to pursue the Millennium Development
Goals with fresh resolve –confronting violence, bigotry
and hatred with the same determination that we attack
the causes from which they spring – conflict, ignorance,
poverty and disease. The world we seek, where every
child can grow to adulthood in health, peace and dignity
– in short, aworld fit for children – has remained
a dream formore years than we can count. But we at
UNICEF are convinced that working together with committed
partners, and with an appropriate plan of action and
a commitment to resources, we can make that dream
a reality for each and every child on earth.”
--
Carol
Bellamy
"A
century that began with children having virtually
no rights is ending with children having the most
powerful legal instrument that not only recognizes
but protects their human rights."
--
Carol
Bellamy
"The
Convention is not only a visionary document. We are
reminded daily that it is an agreement that works
– and its utility can be seen in the everyday use
to which I have seen it increasingly being put by
country after country, in policy, in practice and
in law."
--
Carol
Bellamy
"
…And these children that you spit on
as they try to change their worlds
are immune to your consultations.
They're quite aware of what they're going through…"
-- David Bowie "Changes"
If
our American way of life fails the child,
it fails us all.
-- Pearl
S. Buck
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"If
I had one wish for my children, it would be that each
of them would reach for goals that have meaning for
them as individuals."
-- Lillian Carter
The
most important thing that parents can teach their
children is how to get along without them.
-- Frank A. Clark
The
legacy I want to leave is a child-care system that
says that no kid is going to be left alone or left
unsafe.
-- Marian
Wright Edelman
Investing
in [children] is not a national luxury or a national
choice. It's a national necessity. If the foundation
of your house is crumbling, you don't say you can't
afford to fix it while you're building astronomically
expensive fences to protect it from outside enemies.
The issue is not are we going to pay -- it's are we
going to pay now, up front, or are we going to pay
a whole lot more later on.
-- Marian
Wright Edelman
"For
most of recorded history, parental violence
against children and men's violence against
wives was explicitly or implicitly condoned.
Those who had the power to prevent and/or
punish this violence through religion, law,
or custom, openly or tacitly approved it.
…..The reason violence against women and
children is finally out in the open is that
activists have brought it to global attention."
-- Riane
Eisler
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"No
guarantees come with children's liberation. But neither
the promise of great benefits to all nor the prediction
of great difficulties ahead can serve as the reason
for granting or denying rights to children. Rights
will be granted because without them children are
incapacitated, oppressed, and abused."
-- Richard Farson "Birthrights"
Most
of us tend to view childhood as a time of carefree
pleasure. Those of us who have looked at the real
condition of children in America, however, see a very
different picture--one in which children are victims
of terrible discrimination, prejudice, and abuse.
They need protection. But the protection they need
most is to have the protection of civil rights, so
that they can be regarded as full persons under the
law.
-- Richard Farson
"Children
organizing for political rights will probably be treated
initially with ridicule and derision, and then with
misunderstanding and perhaps eventually violence if
the experience of the struggle for women's suffrage
is any precedent. Undoubtedly the greatest obstacle
to be overcome is the adult refusal to acknowledge
that children suffer political discrimination and
exclusion. Adults do not perceive children as a minority
group but as helpless, inexperienced, defenseless
young people who need protection. Adult paternalism
seeks to protect and if in this process it curtails
freedom, truncates potential and destroys civil liberties
this is taken to be incidental. The belief in the
legitimacy of paternalism justifies and cements the
existing power relationships between adults and young
people. This attitude must be confronted, challenged
and refuted if young people are to secure their political
rights..."
-- Bob Franklin "The Rights of Children"
The
greatest Glory of a free-born People, Is to transmit
that Freedom to their Children.
-- William Havard
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Have
we forgotten about the children, and thus
forsaken the next generation?"
--
Audrey
Hepburn
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"...perhaps
that is what ultimately unites us as a world: the
fact that, no matter how prosperous a nation, how
developed, all share the plight and embarrassment
of having so many suffering children. We are united
by our neglect, our abuse, our absence of love. Have
we forgotten about the children, and thus forsaken
the next generation?"
-- Audrey
Hepburn
"Somebody
said to me the other day, 'You know, it's really senseless,
what you're doing. There's always been suffering,
there will always be suffering, and you're just prolonging
the suffering of these children [by rescuing them].'
My answer is, 'Okay, then, let's start with your grandchild.
Don't buy antibiotics if it gets pneumonia. Don't
take it to the hospital of it has an accident. It's
against life-against humanity-to think that way."
--
Audrey
Hepburn
"It
makes me self-conscious. It's because I'm known, in
the limelight, that it's getting all the gravy, but
if you knew, if you saw some of the people who make
it possible for UNICEF to help these children survive.
These are the people who do the jobs-the unknowns,
whose names you will never know…I at least get a dollar
a year, but they don't."
--
Audrey
Hepburn
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"Giving
kids clothes and food is one thing but it's
much more important to teach them that other
people besides themselves are important, and
that the best thing they can do with their
lives is to use it in the service of other
people."
--
Dolores
Huerta
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There
can be no better measure of our governance
than the way we treat our children, and
no greater failing on our part than to allow
them to be subjected to violence, abuse
or exploitation.
-- Jessica
Lange
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"...
the growing child must not be treated by those
rigid rules of criminal procedure which confessedly
fail to prevent offenses on the part of adults
or cure adult offenders."
-- Julia
Lathrop
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"Regardless
of what the law or your teachers have to say about
this, you are as human as anyone over the age of 18
or 21, yet, 'minors' are one of the most oppressed
groups of people in the world, and certainly the most
discriminated against legally."
-- Grace Llewellyn "The Teenage Liberation Handbook"
The
impact of armed conflict on children is everyone's
responsibility. And it must be everyone's concern.
-- Graça Mache
"The
most revolutionary thing anybody can do
is to raise good, honest and generous children
who will question the answers of people
who say the answer is violence. That's what
the schools should be doing."
-- Coleman
McCarthy
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"The
solution of adult problems tomorrow depends
in large measure upon the way our children
grow up today. There is no greater insight
into the future than recognizing that, when
we save children, we save ourselves."
-- Margaret
Mead
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"A
child, like all other human beings, has
inalienable rights."
-- Lucretia
Mott
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"I
hope to leave my children a sense of empathy
and pity and a will to right social wrongs"
-- Anita
Roddick
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Where,
after all, do universal human rights begin?
In small places, close to home - so close
and so small that they cannot be seen on
any maps of the world ... Such are the places
where every man, woman and child seeks equal
justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity
without discrimination. Unless these rights
have meaning there, they have little meaning
anywhere.
-- Eleanor
Roosevelt
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"Whether
children have first amendment rights is a vexed legal
question, but what is not in question is that they
someday will. Constraining them from expressing their
views is no preparation for exercising those rights."
-- Crispin Sartwell
Nearly
one billion women and men, a third of the world‘s
workforce, are either unemployed or unable to earn
enough to keep themselves out of extreme poverty.
There are 100 million new entrants into the labour
market each year. Up to 90 percent in some regions
are in the informal economy. 180 million kids are
engaged in the worst forms of child labour. Put it
all together and it is not only morally unacceptable,
but politically dangerous.
-- Juan
Somavia
...180
million kids are engaged in the worst forms
of child labour. Put it all together and
it is not only morally unacceptable, but
politically dangerous.
-- Juan
Somavia
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Can
we make a better world for our children? I
believe we can, if enough people are concerned
and get involved in changing what is wrong
with society.
-- Dr.
Benjamin Spock
It's
up to each of us to help create a better world
for our children.
-- Dr.
Benjamin Spock
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"It
used to be believed that the parent had unlimited
claims on the child and rights over him. In a truer
view of the matter, we are coming to see that the
rights are on the side of the child and the duties
on the side of the parent."
-- William G. Sumner, 1840-1910
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"Children
are a wonderful gift . . . They have an extraordinary
capacity to see into the heart of things and
to expose sham and humbug for what they are."
-- Archbishop
Desmond Tutu |
Did
you know that every two hours the nations
of this world spend as much on armaments
as they spend on the children of this world
every year?
-- Peter
Ustinov
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"Each
child should have the fundamental right, a constitutional
right, whether it's a tribal constitutional right,
federal or state constitutional right. It's time we
made our constitutions have our children's rights
in them so they can engage in those experiences that
he or she is most anxious to explore, because it is
having the right to choose that is truly indigenous
to the democratic concept."
-- David Wilkins, Lumbee Tribe
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We
want for our children, as we want for ourselves,
lives at home, at work and at play to be lives
of joy and peace.
-- Betty
Williams
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