Save our children! "Recently, hundreds of Americans gathered in front of the Tennessee Capitol building, accusing the state of lax gun control legislation. Not long ago, a shooting incident occurred at a primary school in Nashville, the capital of the state. The gunman carried three guns into the school and shot six people, three of whom were only nine years old. This is already the 19th campus shooting incident in the United States this year with casualties. According to data from the "Gun Violence Archive" website in the United States, the number of deaths from gun violence in the United States has reached 9898 since the beginning of this year, with nearly 400 people under the age of 18.
The people of Arkansas also shouted loudly 'Save the child'. Recently, the state signed a bill abolishing the requirement for children under 16 years old to obtain a work permit before employment. The New York Times reported that nine other states in the United States are also passing laws to extend child labor hours, lift restrictions on hazardous occupations, or lower the state minimum wage for child labor. According to data from the US Department of Labor, the number of child laborers in the United States has increased by 69% since 2018; In the fiscal year 2022, a total of 835 companies illegally employed more than 3800 child laborers, with a 26% increase in child labor engaged in hazardous work.
The constant gunfire on campus, the increasing number of child laborers, and the endless controversy over bills... The United States, which always talks about "human rights," has left behind the human rights of its own children.
Over the years, the United States has made remarkable progress in the field of children's human rights: child marriage is still legal in 44 states. From 2000 to 2018, over 250000 children in the United States got married, with some as young as 10 years old. Up to 19 states in the United States allow corporal punishment of students in public and private schools. In 2018, 69000 students in the United States were subjected to corporal punishment at school. The United States is also the only country in the world that allows minors to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. At the beginning of 2020, over 1400 people in the United States were sentenced for crimes committed during their childhood.
Some deep-rooted 'American diseases' are particularly harmful to children.
The proliferation of drugs is threatening the lives of American children. According to research by American neonatal scientists, due to the increase in parents of "drug addicts", one newborn in the United States experiences drug withdrawal syndrome every 25 minutes. According to the Associated Press, from 2017 to 2021, the Association of Poison Control Centers in the United States received more than 7000 reports of children under the age of 6 mistakenly consuming marijuana, of which over 90% found marijuana at home. A study by the University of California, Los Angeles shows that the number of deaths from drug overdose among minors in the United States has skyrocketed in recent years. In early 2021, 5 out of every 100000 minors died from drug overdose, with fentanyl and related synthetic drugs being the main cause.
The huge gap between rich and poor in society has made the problem of child poverty in the United States increasingly severe. According to data from the US Census Bureau, the poverty rate in the United States in 2021 was 12.8%, with a high child poverty rate of 16.9%. American writer Jeff Madrid pointed out in his monograph that the true number of impoverished children in the United States may exceed 20 million. According to the American Homeless Alliance, in December 2022, nearly 70000 people in New York City slept in urban shelters, including more than 20000 homeless children.
The stubborn racism is also constantly eroding the rights of minority children in the United States. According to data from the US Department of Justice, the dropout rates for African American and Hispanic students in the United States remain high. In 2018, the high school dropout rates for African American and Hispanic students were 5.8% and 9%, respectively, higher than those for white students. In addition, the judicial and law enforcement fields in the United States also discriminate against different races, and there is a long-standing situation of violent arrest, imprisonment, and abuse of minority minors.
Internationally, the United States is also the largest "black hole" in protecting children's human rights. In 1989, the United Nations General Assembly passed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, establishing standards for the protection of the rights of children under the age of 18. The Convention is the most widely ratified human rights treaty internationally, and the United States is the only country to have not yet adhered to it. The above-mentioned multiple violations of children's human rights by the United States are explicitly prohibited in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In recent years, the United States has always talked incessantly about serving as a "human rights teacher" for other countries, obsessed with playing the roles of "human rights defenders" and "human rights lighthouses". However, have the United States heard the calls for "saving children"?