The following is information related to the negotiations that took place before the official start of the UN Special Session on Children on May 8, 2002:

Governments participating in the UNGASS on Children are still negotiating an outcome document entitled A World Fit for Children. The outcome document is a crucial blueprint for action for the world’s governments, the UN and other international organizations, and children’s advocates in the coming years. As the negotiations continue, governments and international agencies must ensure that the final outcome document protects the basic human rights of all children, including adolescents, as a necessary component of building more open, just, and sustainable communities. These basic human rights encompass the rights to education, to develop their capacities, and to the highest attainable standard of health, including the right to the highest attainable standard of sexual and reproductive health. While conservative governments contest these rights, sexual abuse and violence, early or unwanted pregnancies, and sexually transmissible infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS, continue to threaten the well-being and survival of countless children, particularly adolescent girls. Governments have a legal and moral obligation to ensure all children’s right to protection from physical and sexual violence and their rights to age-appropriate information and services in order to enable young people to protect themselves in all matters related to their sexual and reproductive health.

The Bush administration’s position has been extremely reactionary throughout this process. The U.S. delegation has insisted on abstinence as the sole form of preventing premarital pregnancy, eliminated reference to the right of adolescents to the highest attainable health, and succeeded in deleting references to "reproductive health services". If the U.S. and its odd group of allies force ultra-conservative positions into the outcome document, they will be jeopardizing the health and well-being of millions of adolescents worldwide.

Throughout the negotiations, the Rio Group—composed of Latin American nations—Canada, and the European Union (EU), have been instrumental in ensuring that the conservatives do not succeed in reversing the advances made in the area of adolescent reproductive rights over the last decade. As the Summit gets closer there is increasing pressure on these nations, particularly the Latin American countries. Fortunately, in the final session of negotiations currently taking place, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have formed another progressive negotiating block known as Liechtenstein and Some Developed Countries (LDC). Most African countries have not yet taken an explicit position on reproductive rights as a bloc at the negotiations.

With opening ceremonies of the Special Session on Children a few days away, only 85% of the document has been adopted due in large part to heated debates between the adolescent reproductive rights-friendly delegations and the conservative ones. Disagreement over the inclusion of reproductive rights and services language in the remaining 15% of the document will likely mean that negotiations on the final outcome document will continue through the final day of the UNGASS. Therefore, it is now even more critical for the delegations mentioned above to hold steadfastly to the previous commitments they made to adolescent reproductive rights.

We encourage you to contact the head of your national delegation and express your support for adolescent reproductive rights.

To view the draft outcome document, including the pending paragraphs currently under debate, please see: A World Fit for Children (PDF).

Third Preparatory Committee for the UN Special Session on Children

This meeting took place in New York in June 2001. The following is information related to the events that transpired during the meeting.

Even though this was the last preparatory meeting, the negotiation process was slow and controversial, especially with regard to the topic of reproductive health. The last session of negotiations commenced on June 15 and ended at 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 16. Those topics that are still pending will be negotiated in informal sessions. The negotiated document along with the alternative text proposed by the NGOs and the declaration made by the International Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, of which the Center for Reproductive Rights is a member. The alternative document and the declaration contain the language and commitments that the Center hopes will be included in the final document adopted by the States.

At the outset of the June meetings, it was agreed that the pending topics (namely human rights and reproductive health services) would be negotiated informally in September, days prior to the Special Session. However, "informal-informal" negotiations began in early July and are expected to occur on several other days prior to September. To date, these informal-informals have centered on topics related to child labor and children in armed conflicts.

Since some of the paragraphs related to reproductive health rights have not yet been negotiated it is important, to the extent possible, that organizations around the world actively lobby their respective governments and request:

• That the governments promote and champion the inclusion of rights and reproductive and sexual health services in the final document;

• That the governments send expert representatives on the topic of children’s and adolescents’ human rights;

• That the governments reaffirm the commitments agreed to in Cairo+5 and Beijing+5;

• That the governments effectively negotiate the document in its entirety, preventing other States or Organizations from influencing or unduly delaying the process.

Statement by International Sexual and Reproductive Rights Coalition

To the Third Substantive Session of the Preparatory Committee for the General Assembly Special Session on Children New York, 11 – 15 June 2001

Thank you Madame Chair and distinguished delegates. My name is Maria Antonieta Alcalde Castro and I am speaking on behalf of the International Sexual and Reproductive Rights Coalition (ISRRC); a group of international and regional NGOs which have constituencies in all regions of the world.

The ISRRC is concerned that the Outcome Document of the Special Session on Children in its current form does not adequately reflect the rights and very real needs of adolescents, particularly young women, to access sexual and reproductive health information, education and services. Adolescents comprise one-fifth of the world’s population and, according to international law, enjoy the same human rights as adults. However, in reality they are the ones most affected by human rights violations, especially with regard to access to sexual heath education and services. Sexual and reproductive health services for adolescents are often absent because of a reluctance to address or acknowledge adolescent sexuality, and even where services do exist, service providers often discriminate on the basis of age, marital status, sex, parental or spousal consent. Adolescents often do not have access to sexuality education – because it is not provided at all, or because it is only offered in schools. Many adolescents around the world are already out-of-school and many are married.

The failure to realize adolescents’ sexual and reproductive rights results in lack of knowledge, lack of access to contraception, and vulnerability to sexual violence. It puts adolescents at high risk for unwanted pregnancy, unsafe abortion and HIV/AIDS. For example:

• Maternal mortality is estimated to be 3-4 times higher in adolescent girls than adults. A pregnant adolescent below the age of 18 is 2-5 times more likely to die as a result of pregnancy than a pregnant woman between 18 and 25.

• Every day, 7,000 young people around the world become infected with HIV.

• Every year, at least five million desperate young women aged 15-19 who do not have access to safe abortion services resort to an unsafe abortion, that is 10 young women every minute, many of whom die or have life-long injuries as a result.