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Do Global Infant Feeding Policies Respect the United Nations Principles on the Rights of Children and Families?
1School of Medicine, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK.
Insights
Global infant feeding policies, guided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), require updates. Current policies lack compliance and fail to uphold children's rights, necessitating national government action.
Area of Science:
- Child Health Policy
- Human Rights Law
- Global Public Health
Background:
- Governments must uphold the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) principles: non-discrimination, right to life and development, best interests of the child, and the right to be heard.
- UNICEF has indicated that UNCRC principles can guide the integration of global infant feeding policies into domestic law.
- Existing global infant feeding policy documents are outdated and show significant non-compliance with UNCRC principles.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the compliance of current global infant feeding policies with UNCRC principles.
- To assess whether international organizations' infant feeding policies align with the rights and best interests of children.
- To examine the implications of outdated policies on national infant feeding regulations.
Main Methods:
- Policy analysis of global infant feeding documents.
- Comparative review against UNCRC core principles.
- Assessment of compliance mechanisms and public consultation processes.
Main Results:
- Current global infant feeding policies demonstrate high levels of non-compliance with UNCRC principles.
- International organizations' decisions may not reflect diverse family circumstances or adequately incorporate public consultation.
- Outdated policies and a lack of responsiveness to public input raise concerns about discrimination and denial of the right to be heard.
Conclusions:
- Global infant feeding policy decisions are often made by distant organizations, primarily reflecting WHO/UNICEF and activist viewpoints.
- Dismissal of public consultation and unwillingness to manage differing opinions violate the right to be heard and constitute discrimination.
- National governments should assert sovereign rights to develop and implement national infant feeding policies that align with UNCRC principles, ensuring child well-being and accountability.
Background:
Under the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), governments are now required to enable all children to fulfil their full potential with the key principles being non-discrimination, the right to life and development, the best interests of the child, and the right to be heard. A recent statement by UNICEF indicated that implementation of the principles of the UNCRC provide a pathway for WHO, WHA, and UNICEF global infant feeding policy documents to be introduced into domestic law. But these documents are not recent and have not been updated, and they represent high levels of non-compliance. Moreover, do they actually comply with the principles set out in the UNCRC?
Summary:
Global decisions on infant feeding are being made by organisations who are distant from family circumstances and primarily reflect the views of WHO/UNICEF and activist groups. Evidence of dismissal of public consultation is discriminatory, and an unwillingness to manage differences of opinion is a denial of the right to be heard.
Key Message:
National governments can serve the best interests of the child through sovereign rights, national responsibility and accountability, and development of national infant feeding policies that reflect UNCRC principles.
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