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The International Code of Marketing
of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent, relevant Resolutions
of the World Health Assembly have been further strongly endorsed
by a series of international declarations and policy recommendations.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC)
The Convention on the Rights of the Child
(CRC) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20th
November 1989.
The then Executive Director of the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) James Grant wrote in December
1990 that the CRC "came into force on September 2nd, 1990,
in less time than any other human rights convention. The World
Summit for Children, which strongly endorsed the Convention,
was, in a real sense, the first global action for its implementation."
(Preface to First Call for Children).
The CRC marks the United Nation's move
beyond the basic struggle for child survival to a rights-based
approach, including children's well-being and the "right
to the highest attainable standard of health".
The CRC "ratified by 191 countries
at the end of 1997, is the most universally embraced human rights
instrument in history" (State of the World's Children, UNICEF,
1997).
As a Convention, the CRC is binding on
governments which have a legal, and not just a moral, obligation
to fulfil their commitments.
Article 24 of the CRC spells out the obligations of governments
(States Parties) to diminish infant and young child mortality
and combat disease and malnutrition by taking measures to ensure
that all sectors of society, particularly parents,
"have access to education and are supported in the use of
basic knowledge of child health and nutrition, the advantages
of breastfeeding..."
According to UNICEF the CRC means that,
"States Parties are placed under an obligation to ensure
that the advantages of breastfeeding are universally understood
and to take appropriate measures to achieve this goal. This
can only be accomplished if the information reaching the general
public, and parents in particular, is factual, objective, and
not prepared with a view to persuading mothers to forgo or diminish
breastfeeding and use an artificial product in the mistaken belief
that it is equivalent to breastfeeding." Progress Report
on the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, UNICEF New York, January,
1998.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child
UNICEF "encourages all concerned
parties to join UNICEF in urging the Committee on the Rights
of the Child to ask every government reporting on the CRC whether
it is enforcing the International Code...." UNICEF
Press Release January 14th, 1997.
State Parties have to report their progress
in fulfilling their obligations under the CRC to the Committee
on the Rights of the Child. The Committee reviews progress and
makes recommendations. In the case of Article 24, national programmes
for breastfeeding and the state of Code implementation are among
the endeavours examined. The reporting process is a long-term
one and NGOs such as IBFAN have an important role to play in
contributing to country reports and in monitoring government
action.
The Innocenti Declaration and the Goals
of the World Summit for Children
"The effort to protect, promote
and support breastfeeding is one of our World Summit for Children
goals; it is part of our country programmes; it has been endorsed
by our Executive Board; it is explicit in the Convention (CRC);
it is implicit in our Mission Statement. There is too much at
stake for the International Code to be ignored." UNICEF, 14 January 1997. Press Release
The expanding policy framework was further
strengthened by the Innocenti Declaration on the Protection,
Promotion and Support of Breastfeeding issued in August 1990
by 30 governments meeting in Florence, Italy. In September 1990,
the World Summit for Children endorsed the Innocenti Declaration
and its operational targets became part of the Summit's goals
for the year 2000.
"Together, the Declaration and Plan
of Action of the World Summit for Children and the Convention
on the Rights of the Child constitute an ambitious but feasible
agenda for the well-being of children to be achieved by the year
2000" (James Grant, ibid).
The Innocenti Declaration sets four important
operational targets:
"All Governments should have:
- appointed a national breastfeeding coordinator
of appropriate authority, and established a multisectoral breastfeeding
committee composed of representatives from relevant government
departments, non-governmental organisation, and health professional
associations;
- ensured that every facility providing
maternity services practises all ten of the Ten Steps to Successful
Breastfeeding;
taken action to give effect to the principles and aim of all
Articles of the International Code and subsequent relevant World
Health Assembly Resolutions in their entirety;
- enacted imaginative legislation protecting
the breastfeeding rights of working women and established means
for its enforcement."
All these instruments focus on the International
Code as the minimum requirement, the starting-point for effective
action.
A cycle of international governmental conferences
organised between 1992 and 1995 by United Nations agencies produced
detailed plans of action for implementation at national level.
IBFAN groups can use these platforms for action to ensure that
the following international declarations by their governments
do not remain empty words, but are translated into national ten-year
policies which are regularly monitored.
The Plan of Action of the International
Conference on Nutrition, Rome, 1992 raised the promotion of breastfeeding
as one of eight major nutrition themes.
The Programme of Action of the International
Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 1994 emphasises
the beneficial aspects of breastfeeding for women's health through
its child-spacing effect.
The Platform of Action of the World Conference
on Women and Development, Beijing, 1995 stresses the need to
facilitate breastfeeding for working mothers.
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