New York, 6 October 2026

Mr. Chair,

The Holy See welcomes the discussion on the promotion and protection of the rights of children. As the youngest members of our human family, children deserve a particular level of care and protection. “The rights of children must be legally protected within juridical systems.”[1] Furthermore, “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.”[2]

The family is the foundation and most important safeguard for children’s rights. It is a child’s first community and is responsible for the child’s wellbeing. Mothers and fathers are their children’s first teachers, protectors, and advocates, helping them to become aware of their God-given dignity. Each nation’s future relies on “these new generations that will receive from their parents the manifold heritage of values, duties and aspirations of the nation to which they belong and of the whole human family.”[3]

Many children experience conditions that are unsuitable for their integral human development, such as “lack of health care, or adequate food supply, little or no possibility of receiving a minimum of academic formation or inadequate shelter.”[4] Tragically, families themselves sometimes cause children to suffer through violence and harmful practices such as child marriage.

Children are indeed more likely to live in poverty than adults, which puts them at risk of abuse and exploitation, such as child trafficking and forced labor. Children living in conflict zones also face terrible dangers. Pope Leo XIV notes that, “one perceives, through the lens of innocence, all the horror and inhumanity of actions that some adults boast of with pride.”[5] When efforts to make peace fail, it is often the children who pay the highest price. It is vital to address the root causes of these issues, and to intervene where necessary to ensure that children can grow up “in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.”[6]

“The first right of the child is ‘to be born in a real family,’ a right that has not always been respected and that today is subject to new violations because of developments in genetic technology,”[7] in which children are treated as objects to be discarded or acquired at will. Among these practices “is abortion, which cuts short a growing life and refuses to welcome the gift of life.”[8] Similarly, assisted reproductive practices such as surrogacy violate the dignity of the child, “who is reduced to a ‘product.’”[9]

Mr. Chair,

Some serious problems remain unsolved: trafficking in children, child labor, “street children”, child marriage, exploitation, violence and the use of children in pornography and modern communication. These violations of the God-given dignity of boys and girls must be effectively fought with adequate preventive and penal measures.[10]

Thank you.

_________________________________________

[1] Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 244.

[2] Convention on the Rights of the Child, Preamble paragraph 9; Declaration on the Rights of the Child, Preambular paragraph 3, A/RES/1386(XIV) (1959).

[3] Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 244.

[4] Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 245.

[5] Pope Leo XIV, Reflection at the Prayer Vigil for Peace, 11 April 2026.

[6] Convention on the Rights of the Child, Preambular paragraph 6.

[7] Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, No. 244.

[8] Pope Leo XIV, Address to the Members of the Diplomatic Corps Accredited to the Holy See, 9 January 2026.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Cfr. Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 245.