SANTA ANA : Children’s Rights Vigil Draws 1,000

One by one, the 13 children came to the microphone on the outdoor stage at Centennial Park late Sunday afternoon.

They wore costumes depicting countries of the world. Each youngster, in small but firm voice, recited one of the 13 “Rights of the Child” as adopted by the United Nations General Assembly last year. An audience of about 1,000 adults sat on outdoor chairs and applauded.

“Each child will have adequate shelter,” said one little participant.

“Each child will have access to medical care,” said another.

“Each child will have someone to love and protect them,” said yet another.

Under a golden September sunset, the tableau resembled a parents’ night at school. But the event actually was a vigil and a call to action.

“We’re here to speak about the rights of the child, not only in the United States, but all over the world,” said Shirley Williams of Corona del Mar, chairwoman of the event. “These vigils tonight are being held all over the world” in support of the World Summit for Children on Saturday and Sunday at U.N. Headquarters in New York.

Shelley Whisler of Irvine, another official at the vigil, said the children were summarizing a list of 25 rights of children which the United Nations has ratified. The United States has not ratified the list, she said, “but we’re hoping that President Bush will send it to the Senate for ratification.”

The goal of the World Summit for Children, Williams said, is to “put children high on the agenda of the 1990s, giving them priority on our global resources. Every day, more than 40,000 children under the age of 5 die, and most die from such preventable causes as malnutrition and dehydration.”

She said that people in the United States are being urged to write President Bush and their representatives in Congress to urge support of federal programs for children, such as Head Start and aid to impoverished mothers and babies.

The event in Centennial Park was one of at least four such vigils Sunday in Orange County--others were in Brea, Orange and Newport Beach--and one of hundreds scheduled around the world.

Jean Forbath, director of the Costa Mesa-based charity Share Our Selves, told the Centennial Park audience: “Usually when we think of hungry children, we think of the Third World. I think it’s completely intolerable to have a hungry child in a county like Orange, where we have such vast wealth, wealth more than many, many countries in the world.”

At SOS, she said, “sometimes we see newborn babies, just out of the hospital, and they don’t have formula. . . . I’ve seen other children who are so hungry they can’t wait, and they tear open a package. . . .”

Forbath said she remembered one homeless girl who told her, “I used to go to school, and I was learning how to read, but now I don’t go to school any more.”