Te

By MARIA DUBOIS

THE INTERNATIONAL
YEAR OF THE CHILD, de-
clared by the United Nations
for 1979, was first proposed by
the Canadian women’s delega-
tion to the World Congress for
International Women’s Year.
From the support of women of
the world there, the proposal
was taken to the United Na-
tions by the Continuing Com-
mittee, which has now become
enlarged and with the name:
The International Committee
for the UN Women’s Decade.
Atits February meeting, one of -
the Workshops was on the In-
ternational Year of the Child,
and the whole assembly heard one of the main reports on the
topic by Fanny Edelman, who had been invited to make the
presentation as the General Secretary of the Women’s Interna-
tional Democratic Federation (WIDF). Both men and women.
there, coming from 49 countries and every continent, representa-
tives of 26 international organizations, and representatives of UN
agencies, all agreed to support the International Year of the
Child, and a world conference on the subject in 1979.

Doris Philipps, speaking for UNICEF, the agency designated
by the United Nations for implementation of plans and coordina-
tion at the international level, pointed out that 1979 would be the

‘20th anniversary of the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
Children born in 1979 would become twenty-one by the year
2000, and ‘‘they may take our places, if given the right start.’

Canon Moerman, of the Catholic International Child Welfare
Bureau, was credited as ‘“‘the midwife’ in helping the idea of
International Year of the Child to be born at the United Nations,
in spite of some opposition on the part of certain western coun-
tries. He served as co-chairman of the Workshop on Interna-
tional [YC year of the child, and diplomatically brought together
divergegt ideas, ably assisted by Fanny Edelman and the co-
chairman from the World Federation of Democratic Youth.

* * *

“IS THERE ANY QUESTION MORE IMPORTANT FOR
the future of humanity than those connected with the
child?” Fanny Edelman asked, as she noted that the United
Nations had recommended in 1973 that ‘‘no further international
years be proclaimed except for éxtremely important reasons.”’
She reminded delegates that one of the four main planks of the
WIDF at its founding in 1945 was ‘‘defence of the rights of all
children to life, well-being and education.”’ In 1949, the WIDF
named June 1 for the observance of International Children’s Day, §
and ‘‘this day has become a great day of action by our national
organizations, in cooperation with other organizations for im-
plementation of the rights of the child all over the world. It is a
great time for solidarity with the children of the countries and
peoples fighting for freedom, national independence, democracy
and social justice.’’ She quoted Helvi Sipila, who spoke in refer-
ence to International Women’s Year, that the problems ‘“‘are so-
enormous that they cannot be left to be the concern of women
only or any single group or body in isolation. Their solution must
become a world concern.”’ Then she referred to UNICEF pub-
lished statements: :

e there are 1,558,200,000 children aged up to 15 years in the
world, and two-thirds of them live in developing countries;

e 800,000,000 children live in remote rural areas where the rate
. infant mortality, illiteracy and undernourishment is extrenfely

igh;

e 500,000,000 live in abominable. conditions due to the
economic state of their countries;

e in countries which have freed themselves of oppression and
exploitation, where the peoples are the masters of their own
destiny, the all-round education of the child is a basic objective

- hew standards are set in overcoming infant mortality and
illiteracy, and discrimination is ended.

Sf

* *

FOR THE 1979 INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF THE CHILD
world conference the topics proposed were:

e the rights and happiness of the child as an integral part of
action for peace and universal disarmament and for economic
and social progress;

e the fight against hunger, undernourishment and infant mor-
tality;

e the struggle to eliminate illiteracy;

e education of the younger generation in a spirit of peace,
friendship and respect among peoples:

e the influence of the mass media on the education and training
of the young child.

In Canada, initiatives are already under way, by UNICEF and
other organizations to prepare for lYC. A beginning will be made
in many centres at celebrations of International Children’s Day,
June 1.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 3, 1977—Page 8

Disarmament and development |
a course formantofollow |

Today, one is bound to feel
alarmed as one reads reports
about the possibility of new types
of weapons being developed,
more, fearful than the nuclear
bomb. These include radiation
weapons which act upon the
blood and intracellular fluid, in-
frasound weapons which damage
internal organs and psychotropic
ones — which unbalance the
mind, etc.

Man faces the possibility of
dying at the hands of creation.
Only a set of measures leading to
lasting peace can deliver us from
such a dramatic situation.

Thus, disarmament could bring
about emotional tranquility — an
indispensable precondition for
man’s creative pursuits. The en-
tire moral and political climate
would be different. In a world
which is ridding itself of arms,
people of different lands would
have much more confidence in
one another and could cooperate
better.

$300-Billion Annually

Disarmament would free na-
tions from the burden of military
spending which runs into more
than $300-billion annually (almost
a billion daily). Military spending
exceeds the GNPs of all the de-
veloping countries in South Asia,
the Middle East and Africa put
together. It is pretty clear that a
meaningful placing of such huge
funds could improve the people’s
living conditions.

Mankind pays almost 8% of its
annual income to keep up the
arms race and maintain its armies.
In other words, every working
person gives up a-month’s pay
each year for those ends. The cost
of modern armaments is growing,
e.g., a U.S. Trident submarine
costs $1.3-billion dollars to build.

The national economies in the
newly developing countries -are
most sensitive to military spend-
ing. If vast material resources
were not increasingly squandered
on the development of means of
exterminating people and were
channelled into satisfying human
interests, many of our acute prob-
lems could have been coped with.

Unemployment in developed
capitalist countries is at a level of
15-18 million, and in developing
countries — is about 100 million
(close to one-fifth of their poten-
tial labor force). According to
U.S. estimates, if the present
military spending in the USA
alone were used for investment in
peacetime industries, some four
million additional jobs would be
provided.

An End to Colonialism

The redistribution of funds for
peaceful purposes would be par-
ticularly important for the popula-
tion of developing countries since
it could speed up the liquidation of
the aftermath of colonialism —
economic, scientific and technical
backwardness, poverty and mal-
nutrition.

The link between disarmament
and development is a natural one.
There can be no creation at a time
of war. It is hardly coincidential
that the UN has declared the
seventies to be a decade of de-
velopment and of disarmament.

There is a similarly clear link
between development and the re-
duction of military spending. In
1958 the Soviet Union puta resol-
ution to the UN to reduce military
budgets by 10-15% and to set
aside a part of the resulting funds

How would disarmament af-
fect the life of a country and the
lives of individuals? That is a
question posed by many
people throughout the world. It
is a question often raised in let-
ters to the Soviet publication
Moscow News (published in
English). Alexander
Krukhmalev, Candidate of Sci-
ence (Philosophy), answers
this way.

to assist developing courttries. In
1973 the USSR repeated its re-
solve to reduce military spending
of UN _ Security Council
member-states by 10%. This was
put on record in a resolution of the
28th Session of the UN General
Assembly.

If the Security Council mem-
bers had set aside but 1% of their
military budgets to assist de-
velopment, the scope of UN as-
sistance to developing countries
would have grown by approxi-
mately $2-billion. They have,

however, failed to support this in--

itiative. The present aggregate
total world military budget is ap-
proximately 20 times greater than
the annual economic and techni-
cal assistance given by developed
to developing countries.
Shoulder the Burden
Whereas people in the socialist
countries know neither un-
employment, nor other social
evils, they still shoulder the bur-
den of military spending, forced
upon them by some imperialist
elements in the world. Were it not
for this circumstance, socialism

would have shown its advantages
as a system of true humanism 10)
the full and would have ens
the harmonious development. 0)
the individual to an even greatel

degree. a

Neither the USSR nor the othef
socialist countries exploited cok}
onies nor plundered dependen!
countries, and consequently, are)
not indebted to them. Socialis!
countries are eager to do all i
their power to help the develop
ment of Asian, African and Latit}
American states. It is under
standable that in conditions of
disarmament socialist states)
would be in a position to give evel
greater assistance to developing
countries.

Lenin stressed that disarma
ment is the ideal of socialism:
Under socialism there are neithe!
classes nor social groups if
terested in war, nor people pro
fiting from arms production.

Socialism is a society of work
ing people, and workers are vit
ally interested in having peaceful
conditions.

The 25th Congress of thé
Communist Party of the Soviet
Union put forth a program of
further struggle for peace, whos
central place belongs to disarma
ment. In recent years the Soviel|
Union has submitted to interna
tional organizations and goveri
ments of different countries more)
than 70 proposals concerning dis
armament, prevention of thé
threat of the use of nucleal
weapons and about detente.

possible.”

widely as possible.”

Governments, including Canada’s, which signed the Final Act of
the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, concluded
in Helsinki, Finland, August 1, 1975, agreed as follows: ;

“The text of this Final Act will be published in each participating
state, which will disseminate it and make it known as widely as

While the Final Act has been published in millions of copies in
various countries, most extensively in the socialist countries, the
Canadian Government, one of the signators, is charging $2 acopy |
for its version — a price not conducive to making it known “as

When the Canadian Peace Congress requested copies to assist
in the dissemination of the important document, it received the
accompanying letter from the External Affairs Department. The
Congress has since requested that the government publish the
Final Actin an inexpensive edition and, in fact, “disseminate it and
make it known as widely as possible.”

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