MISSING: United States #KONY2012

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Now that social media is buzzing about the KONY2012 campaign by the organization Invisible Children, this is a good time to start looking at issues here in the United States as they relate to international issues.

For example, did you know that there are only two counties on the entire planet that have not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a human rights treaty? Somalia and the United States are the only two countries that have not stepped up to the plate and ratified.

Nations that ratify the convention are bound to it by international law. The treaty looks to protect children by setting the “civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children,” according to a Wikipedia entry. These rights include forbidding capital punishment for children (under the age of 18) and there is an optional protocol where children under the age of eighteen are not to be forced to enlist into their armed forces and if they do enlist voluntarily that they not engage in hostilities.

So if you are intrigued by the KONY 2012 but want to take action locally, call on the United States to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yes, it will lead to changes and there is strong opposition to ratifying by special interest groups.

Do you think the United States should ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child?

This video has the United Nations’ perspective on the complexities of tracking down Joseph Kony and his marauding force, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Learn more

• KONY 2012 and the Age of Online Activism
• History and opposition from religious conservatives on Wikipedia.
• United Nations Fact Sheet on the LRA and Children.