[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 27 (Monday, July 10, 2000)]
[Pages 1588-1590]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Signing the United Nations Optional Protocols on the Rights 
of Children in New York City

July 5, 2000

    Thank you very much, Ambassador Holbrooke. That generous 
introduction confirms one of my unbreakable laws of politics, which is, 
whenever possible, you should endeavor to be introduced by someone you 
have appointed to high office. [Laughter]
    I thank you, Deputy Secretary-General Frechette, for your welcome 
and for hosting me here today. And I'm delighted to see Olara Otunnu, 
Carol Bellamy. And thank you, Jim Wolfensohn, for being here and for 
your truly visionary leadership of the World Bank. I thank the members 
of the Security Council and the other Ambassadors who are here.
    It's a special honor to have the President of Mali, President 
Konare, here, as well. I thank Secretary Summers for his work, and for 
coming here. And I'm delighted to be here with three Members of the 
House of Representatives, the chairman of the House Committee on 
International Affairs, Mr. Ben Gilman from New York, and Representative 
Carolyn Maloney, who represents the district in which the United Nations 
is located, and Sheila Jackson Lee from Houston, Texas, who did so much 
work on these subjects we're here to discuss today.
    I also appreciate the presence here of members of the NGO community 
and members of the State, Defense, and Justice Departments' negotiating 
team who worked on these agreements. I'd also like to acknowledge the 
leadership of the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff who 
worked hard to ensure that we could sign the child soldier's protocol in 
good faith, without compromising our military readiness or our national 
security in any way.
    Let me begin just by expressing a general word of appreciation, if I 
might, to the United Nations for the work that you have done. You 
mentioned the 500 multinational protocols that have come out of this 
organization since it began. We are grateful for the attention that you 
are now devoting to the world health crisis, and for the opportunity 
that we will have to introduce this resolution tomorrow, for the work 
you are doing for peacekeeping, most recently in Sierra Leone, and in so 
many other ways. It's a profound honor for the United States to host the 
United Nations, especially in this millennial year, and I'm looking 
forward to coming back for the Millennial Summit.
    These two protocols today, I believe, are very important statements 
that go beyond their very terms. With the Convention on the Worst Forms 
of Child Labor I signed last year, they form a trio of vital protections 
for children, and they must be signposts for the future of the global 
society.

[[Page 1589]]

    To give life to our dream of a global economy that lifts all people, 
first we must stand together for all children. Yet every day, tens of 
millions of children work in conditions that shock the conscience. Every 
day, thousands of children are killed and brutalized in fighting wars 
that adults decided they should fight in. Every day around the world, 
and even here in the United States, children are sold into virtual 
slavery or traffic for the worst forms of sexual abuse.
    Think about what has been lost for the future because roughly 2 
million children have fought in wars over the last two decades. In 
Sierra Leone today, as many as half the rebel forces are under 18, some 
as young as 5 or 6. In Colombia, guerrillas have taken thousands of 
children from their villages to serve as soldiers.
    Two years ago when we went to Africa, Hillary met with Ugandan 
children who had been abducted and heard their stories of unspeakable 
horror--of children forced to kill each other, family members, even 
their own parents. In Africa and around the world, she has been an 
eloquent and strong and consistent voice on behalf of our children--
those who have been abused, exploited, and forced into war. And I wish 
she could be with me here today, because she's an important reason for 
why we're all here. This morning she reminded me that I should say, 
again, there is now worse sin in life than sending a child to kill the 
people who gave him life.
    The Optional Protocol on Children in Armed Conflict sets a clear and 
a high standard: No one under 18 may ever be drafted by any army in any 
country. Its signatories will do everything feasible to keep even 
volunteers from taking a direct part in hostilities before they are 18. 
They will make it a crime for any non-governmental force to use children 
under 18 in war. And they will work together to meet the needs of 
children who have been forced into war, to save a generation that 
already has lost too much.
    What happens to the world's children in peacetime can be just as 
shocking. In the 21st century, it is difficult to believe that the 
global traffic in human beings is the third-largest source of income for 
organized crime--hundreds of thousands of children bought and sold, 
exploited and prostituted every year. Yet many countries don't even have 
laws against this kind of trade.
    The Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution 
and Child Pornography will do a great deal to change that. It specifies 
that child pornography, prostitution, and enslavement are crimes 
everywhere. It provides better tools for law enforcement to extradite 
and prosecute those who profit from this dirty business.
    Already we are waging a firm fight against those who traffic in 
children, but this protocol will make a big difference. And I was glad 
that the Deputy Secretary-General invited other countries to sign this 
and other outstanding protocols when they're here for the Millennial 
Summit.
    Every American citizen should support these protocols. It is true 
that words on paper are not enough, but these documents are a clear 
starting point for action, for punishing offenders, dismantling the 
networks of trafficking, caring for the young victims. They represent an 
international coalition formed to fight a battle that one country, even 
a large country, cannot win alone. They represent a worldwide consensus 
on basic values, values every citizen of our country shares. In short, I 
believe they represent the United Nations at its very best. And they 
remind us why, at a time when crime, disease, and hate can spread faster 
than ever before, we need a strong United Nations more than ever before.
    The United States has already passed a sense of the Senate 
resolution in support of the Protocol on Children in Armed Conflict. I 
will send both protocols to the Senate this month, and I hope very much 
that they can be ratified this year.
    Both agreements are stand-alone documents; they create no 
obligations to other agreements which the United States has not 
ratified. They speak to an international sense of justice and to the 
belief profoundly shared by our people that children deserve love and 
protection.
    During one of the darkest moments of the 20th century, the great 
German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, reminded us that ``the test of 
the morality of a society is what it does for children.'' Today more 
than ever, this is a test the world cannot afford to fail.

[[Page 1590]]

The United States should always be at the forefront of this effort.
    I am grateful for the opportunity Americans had to take a leading 
role in negotiating these agreements and to be among the first nations 
to sign them. I pledge my best efforts to see that we are also leaders 
in implementing them and, in so doing, in granting the world's children 
a future far better than its recent past. I thank all of you for your 
support as well.
    Thank you very much.

 Note:  The President spoke at 3:35 p.m. in the West Foyer at the United 
Nations. In his remarks, he referred to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
Richard C. Holbrooke; U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette; 
Olara A. Otunnu, Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children 
and Armed Conflict; Carol Bellamy, executive director, UNICEF; and 
President Alpha Oumar Konare of Mali.