World Fit for Children, Special Session

Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund, delivered the opening speech at the United Nation General Assembly’s Special Session on Children called A World Fit for Children. At the World Summit on Media for Children and Adolescents (WSMCA), Bellamy declared that "we owe it to children to use the power of the mass media to help build a better world. It is our duty to promote and protect children’s right to speak their minds and to freely seek, receive, and impart information and ideas."

At a time when mass media plays a big role in our lives, Ms. Bellamy reminds us that 191 countries affirmed their obligation to recognise the importance of the mass media in promoting child rights when they ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
A series of questions explore if the goals of the Convention are being met - in the context of the inequities of globalisation, the rights of children to have access to information, and the inclusion of minority and indigenous children.

Bellamy describes that the concentration of media ownership by fewer is leading to "poorer quality" children's programming, "less diversity, more negative stereotypes, more images of violence and sex, more airtime devoted to commercials selling products that are harmful to children's health."

In 1998, the Oslo Challenge was created to make an appeal for countries to fulfill their obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Bellamy sites as one example, the "Magic" website which is a "showcase of best practice and information bank on all things relating to media and children." She also says that are some governments that do hold privately owned media accountable for setting "child-friendliness" standards. "Airwaves and cyberspace do not belong to the broadcasters or to the advertisers. In the vast majority of countries, they belong, by law, to the people. Media companies are issued licenses with the proviso that they serve the public interest." A number of "outstanding" NGO's seek to improve media coverage of children's issues, and ANDI, one from Brazil, is one example which is now expanding to other countries in Latin America.

Bellamy concludes with four suggestions:

1. The Summit's final declaration includes a strong appeal to the world's media and advertisers to take the media-related principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child to heart.
2. Governments and parliaments everywhere should re-think their current media policies, laws and regulations in terms of their effect on children.
3. National commitments be made to improve the mass media for children, starting with television - as a broad coalition of public and private institutions, including major media, is doing in Colombia.
4. Commemorate this historic meeting by opening an on-going global conversation on media and children – one that explores, with children and young people, what we must do to ensure that the potential of the next generation is fulfilled, and that their voices are heard.