On August 12, 2010, the United Nations ceremoniously kicked off its “International Year of Youth.” By “youth” the UN means people from 15 to 24. Altogether they comprise nearly a fifth of the world’s population, with some 87% living in developing countries.

“Youth deserve our full commitment,” declared Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, “full access to education, adequate healthcare, employment opportunities, financial services and full participation in public life.”

Noble aims, to be sure. Unfortunately these days, the best-intentioned UN programs too often become laced with poison. Consider, for example, the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and its aftermath.   

The Battle over our Children

While no one questions the good motives behind the CRC, yet somewhere it took a very wrong turn. Its “sweeping and unprecedented creation of autonomy rights for children,” notes law professor Richard G. Wilkins, “may, in the long run, threaten children’s well being. (“International Law, Social Change, and the Family.”)

Or, as Howard Center President Allan C. Carlson explains, the CRC “contains measures that subvert the authority of parents over their children; strip away the authority of religious faith and tradition in favor of a politicized and radical social science; and prevent nations and peoples from sheltering their own unique cultures.” In contrast, children’s real needs include the right to a father and a mother united in the bonds of marriage, the right to religious faith, and the right to mature physically, emotionally, and morally. (“How to Make the World Truly Safe for Children.”)

Years after the CRC took effect, the UN sought to reassess and take a larger step down that same road by holding a Special Session on Children, or Children’s Summit (originally planned for 2001, but delayed a year because of 9/11). Preparatory meetings were held to begin negotiations on a new document. It was during that process that I first set foot in the UN, having been asked by a pro-family group to try to make a difference in the outcome of the document. Little did I know what a tall order that was.

At lunch on the first day in the UN cafeteria, a pro-life lobbyist from the UK sat across from me and extended a cordial welcome. He then added a somber warning: “If you Americans really knew what was happening within these walls, you would get out and withdraw your substantial funding for the UN.” He proceeded to explain that this was a battleground for the greatest war ever against the family, children, and unborn life, a war waged by those dedicated to revolutionize society’s social structure.

It didn’t take long to see what he meant. The Children’s Summit negotiations were incredibly divisive, a clash of two radically different agendas repeatedly deadlocked over children’s autonomy and their sexuality and abortion rights. The meetings were scheduled to end at 6:00 pm, but they kept protracting, first to 9:00, then to 11:00, then to well past midnight, and finally all night. A delegate came out from a negotiating session shaking his head and muttering that he had never seen such madness. Another delegate emerged and told me that she had just been threatened that if she failed to vote the “right” way, foreign aid to her small country would be cut off. (She courageously held the line.)

Thanks to the valiant efforts of pro-family delegates and their supporters who refused to give up on children, much of the proposed dangerous language was kept out of the final document, and some powerful pro-family language was included. Paragraph 37, for example, requires that implementing strategies and actions be carried out “consistent with national laws, religious and ethical values and cultural backgrounds of its people.”

The outcome proved galling to our opposition. Months later when I was working at a UN regional conference in Bangkok, I heard the president of IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation) address the conference and rudely berate the US delegation for what had happened at the Children’s Summit. He vowed to take back the territory that had been “lost.”

And Now the Youth

IPPF continues its attack. Its brochure Happy, Healthy and Hot—published just in time for the International Year of Youth—is a call to the youth of the world to assert their “sexual and reproductive rights” and to freely explore and experiment with their sexuality. No limits other than what feels good: “It’s your body. You choose what you do, when you do it, how and with whom,” says the brochure. It contains graphic instructions and encourages youth to “talk dirty” to your partner and “act out your fantasies.”

IPPF is also reportedly one of the forces behind a radical document produced at the recent World Youth Conference in Mexico. Claiming to be the voice for 208 representatives from 153 countries, the document pretends to speak for the youth of the world. It will be presented to the General Assembly in this International Year of Youth, and will be just what many in the UN want to hear: “We demand,” declares the document, “sexual and reproductive health and rights.” The document is further riddled with references to sexual preferences, sexual orientation, and abortion. Absent from the document is any mention of abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterwards.

So again the UN becomes a battleground. And again the stakes are high: our precious youth at this critical juncture of their lives when moral choices determine their future health, happiness, prosperity, and family stability. We must rise up and act in a battle not of our own choosing. It is indeed as Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, past President of the Pontifical Council on the Family, stated:

We are living in a decisive and very important moment. If we have bad laws concerning the institutions that are fundamental for the life of society, then we will all suffer and, after us, the generations to come. The situation that has been created in our world with regard to marriage and the family calls for all our efforts.