Elsevier Celebrates the 20th Anniversary of the UN Convention for the Rights of the Child (CRC) with Freely Available Special Issue

Oxford, November 19, 2009 – Elsevier, the leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, announced today the publication of a freely available Special Issue of Child Abuse and Neglect The International Journal 1989-2009 on the 20th Anniversary of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

The Special Issue aims to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It provides an overview of two decades of development in the areas of child maltreatment research, data collection, and reporting practice, as required by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and will facilitate information and practice exchange to support governments and professionals in their important efforts globally.

Guest Editors Yanghee Lee, Chairperson, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and Kimberly Svevo-Cianci, President of the US Child Rights Protection Consultancy-International, commented: “This year is a landmark year for children. It marks the 20th anniversary of the adoption of a legally binding human rights treaty—the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was unanimously adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on the 20th of November, 1989, and became enforceable from September 2 of 1990. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (commonly referred to as CRC) is the first binding instrument in international law to deal with the rights of children. It is the most comprehensive treaty that contains 42 detailed provisions enshrining the rights of children in all areas of their lives, including economic, social and cultural rights, and civil and political rights, providing the highest level of international standards and guidelines for regional and national implementation. The CRC is the only international human rights treaty that has almost universal ratification. It currently has 193 ratifications, still with the exception of only two States: Somalia and USA”.

Dan Morgan, Executive Publisher of Psychology at Elsevier commented “We are excited to be able to support this celebratory moment for the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child by opening up free access to this special issue for a year, highlighting contributions by such child rights and protection experts as Dr. Lee, Jaap Doek, past UN CRC Committee chairperson; Desmond Runyan, Professor, University of North Carolina; and Stuart Hart, Deputy Director, International Institute for Child Rights and Development, University of Victoria (Canada). With such a potential broad appeal for this important and timely issue, from the public to policymakers to researchers to social workers and NGO leaders, this should enable quicker and easier access to valuable information on child rights and protection for all”.