HOLY SEE SIGNS PROTOCOLS TO CONVENTION ON CHILD'S RIGHTS

VATICAN CITY, OCT 18, 2000 (VIS) - Published this morning was a communique stating that on October 10, Archbishop Renato R. Martino, apostolic nuncio and permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, signed two Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child: the first on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, of May 25, 2000, and the second on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, also of May 25, 2000.

The signing took place at a ceremony in the Office of Legal Affairs at U.N. headquarters in New York, in the presence of Palitha Kohona, chief of the Treaty Section of the U.N. The communique states that "Mr. Kohona, expressing his pleasure at the prompt signing of the above Protocols by the Holy See, informed Archbishop Martino that, as of October 10, 70 States have signed and 3 States have ratified the Optional Protocol on Children in Armed Conflicts, and that 64 States have signed and 1 State has ratified the Optional Protocol for the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography."

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