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	International Campaign for universal ban on sale and prostitution of children by Anthony Lake UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF)   May 2010   The United Nations has launched a major campaign for universal adoption of treaty protocols that outlaw the sale of children, child prostitution and pornography, and protect youngsters in armed conflict, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling for full ratification by 2012.   “The sad truth is that too many children in today’s world suffer appalling abuse,” he told a ceremony at the headquarters of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in New York marking the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the two optional protocols strengthening the Convention on the Rights of the Child by providing a moral and legal shield for youngsters vulnerable to prostitution and pornography or caught up in armed conflict. “Two-thirds of all Member States have endorsed these instruments. On this tenth anniversary of their adoption, I urge all countries to ratify them within the next two years.”   The Secretary-General cited recent advances: the release three months ago by the Maoist army in Nepal, under UN supervision, of more than 2,000 soldiers who had been recruited as children; the UN-assisted freeing of children from the ranks of armed groups In Côte d’Ivoire; the prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of former Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga for war crimes against children.   He noted, too, that fewer and fewer States now permit children to join the armed forces and reiterated his previous calls to the Security Council to consider tough measures on those States and insurgent groups that still recruit children.   More countries are also reforming legislation and criminalizing the sale of children, child prostitution, child pornography and the sexual exploitation of children, with international cooperation helping to dismantle paedophile networks, remove child pornography from the Internet, and protect children from sexual exploitation by tourists.   “Nonetheless, much remains to be done,” he declared. “In too many places, children are seen as commodities, in too many instances they are treated as criminals instead of being protected as victims, and there are too many conflicts where children are used as soldiers, spies or human shields.”   UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said the Optional Protocols “represent a promise made to the world’s most vulnerable children – children born into extreme poverty and despair, children in countries torn apart by conflict and children forced into unimaginable servitude by adults who regard them as commodities.”   The Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict has been ratified by 132 States; 25 States have signed but not ratified it and 36 States have neither signed nor ratified it. “We know from the situation on the ground that much remains to be done. Violence against children in all its forms remains a challenge for societies in the world,” Mr. Ban’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy said.   “There are a multitude of conflicts where children are used as soldiers, spies, human shields or for sexual purposes. Every additional ratification of the Optional Protocol would therefore bring us closer to a world in which no child is participating in hostilities and forced to serve the national military or irregular armies.”   The Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, has been ratified by 137 States; 27 have signed but not ratified and 29 have neither signed nor ratified it.   “The Optional Protocol is an important tool for tearing through the mantle of invisibility surrounding the sale of children, child prostitution, child pornography and other forms of sexual exploitation, to mobilize societies and to translate political commitment into effective protection of children from all forms of violence,” Mr. Ban’s Special Representative on Violence against Children Marta Santos Pais said, citing significant law reforms to criminalize such crimes.   At a later news conference UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Hilde Johnson cited called the use of child soldiers and their sale and misuse in pornography and slavery-like sex work as two of the most brutal abuses of children. “This has to come to an end, so the first step is to ensure universal ratification,” she said.   Ms. Santos Pais praised the change that has taken place over the past 10 years, with new legislation introduced and protection system strengthened in most countries. “But unfortunately we are halfway. We are absolutely impatient to see this process of change touch upon the lives of all children in the world.” Visit the related web page
	The Myth of Never Again by Kofi A. Annan Salzburg Global Seminar Austria   Many countries in Europe and North America now require all high-school pupils to learn about the Holocaust. Why? Because of its historical importance, of course, but also because, in our increasingly diverse and globalized world, educators and policy-makers believe Holocaust education is a vital mechanism for teaching students to value democracy and human rights, and encouraging them to oppose racism and promote tolerance in their own societies.   That was certainly my assumption in 2005 when, as U.N. secretary general, I urged the General Assembly to pass a resolution on Holocaust Remembrance, which included a call for “measures to mobilize civil society for Holocaust remembrance and education, in order to help to prevent future acts of genocide.”   Indeed it might seem almost self-evident that Holocaust education would have that purpose, and that effect. Yet it is surprisingly hard to find education programs that have clearly succeeded in linking the history of the Holocaust with the prevention of ethnic conflict and genocide in today’s world.   Of course, prevention is always difficult to prove. But the least one can say is that the cry of “never again,” raised by so many in the years after 1945, has rung increasingly hollow with the passing decades. The Holocaust remains unique in its combination of sophisticated technical and organizational means with the most ruthlessly vicious of ends, but instances of genocide and large-scale brutality have continued to multiply — from Cambodia to the Congo, from Bosnia to Rwanda, from Sri Lanka to Sudan.   Few countries at present, even among those that require their teachers to teach the Holocaust, give them any specific training or guidance on how to do so. And few teachers in any country have the knowledge or skills to teach the Holocaust in a way that would enable today’s adolescents, who often represent within a single classroom a wide variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, to relate it to the tensions they encounter in their own lives. More and better teacher training is surely needed.   But do we know what the content of that training should be?   If our goal in teaching students about the Holocaust is to make them think harder about civic responsibility, human rights and the dangers of racism, then presumably we need to connect the Holocaust with other instances of genocide, and with ethnic conflicts or tensions in our own time and place. That would enable students not only to learn about the Holocaust, but also to learn important lessons from it.   The time has surely come to ask some hard questions about “traditional” Holocaust education, and perhaps to rethink some of the assumptions on which it has been based. Are programs focusing on the Nazi system and ideology, and particularly on the horrendous experience of their millions of victims, an effective response to, or prophylactic against, the challenges we face today?   It is easy to identify with the victims. But if we want to prevent future genocides, is it not equally important to understand the psychology of the perpetrators and bystanders — to comprehend what it is that leads large numbers of people, often “normal” and decent in the company of their own family and friends, to suppress their natural human empathy with people belonging to other groups and to join in, or stand by and witness, their systematic extermination?   Do we not need to focus more on the social and psychological factors that lead to these acts of brutality and indifference, so that we know the warning signs to look out for in ourselves and our societies?   Do current education programs do enough to reveal the dangers inherent in racial or religious stereotypes and prejudices, and to inoculate students against them? Does the teaching of the history of the Holocaust at classroom level sufficiently link it to the root causes of contemporary racism or ethnic conflict? And shouldn’t the Holocaust be studied throughout the world, alongside other tragic instances of human barbarism?   * Kofi A. Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, is honorary president of the advisory board for the Holocaust Education and Genocide Prevention Program at the Salzburg Global Seminar. Visit the related web page
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