With the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1989 and the World Summit for Children in 1990, the international community clearly articulated its commitment to the fundamental human rights of every child. The GNRC has a key role to play in helping to mobilize religious leaders, communities and grassroots workers around the world to make this commitment a reality in the lives of children everywhere. As part of its effort to fulfill this role, the GNRC conducts training in child rights for faith-based NGOs as well as for children and young people themselves.

In addition to encouraging people of faith to prioritize child rights in their work, the GNRC, drawing on the deepest teachings of the world’s great religions, also contributes a spiritual foundation and compelling moral force to the child rights movement. The GNRC helps to connect ancient religious teachings on the inherent worth of every child with the modern humanitarian principles of human rights and dignity.

GNRC members work together with local child rights advocates from civil society and cooperate closely with UNICEF and other UN agencies both globally and locally. UNICEF and the GNRC are conducting a joint study entitled “The Child in World Religions.” The results of the study are expected to help underscore and energize the commitment that exists in all the world’s faith traditions to defending the rights of the child.

In May 2002, the United Nations General Assembly convened for a Special Session on Children to review progress over the decade since the World Summit and call for renewed commitment to full implementation of the CRC. Speaking at the Special Session on behalf of the GNRC, Rev. Takeyasu Miyamoto, President of the Arigatou Foundation, made a statement to the UN General Assembly proposing the formation of the Interfaith Council on Ethics Education for Children , expressing the GNRC's further commitment to work for the eradication of poverty, and pledging the devotion of religious people to the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Global Movement for Children.

The Interfaith Council was established in May 2004 and is developing a toolkit and instructor training program designed to provide opportunities for interfaith ethical learning on ethics to children and young people around the globe. Workshops using the toolkit have already taken place in several world regions: Latin America, South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Instructors from all six GNRC regions are being selected and trained to provide this unique new form of ethics education.

More information on the Special Session on Children is available at: http://www.unicef.org/specialsession.