Pa. gets a D for its laws on children
The U.S. record on protecting our children is abysmal. We try them as adults. Child marriage is still happening. So are corporal punishment, and child labor. The United States is the only United Nations member country that has not ratified the international treaty on children’s rights. Most people might think this isn’t such a big deal because our country is good to children.
But it turns out we aren’t, and our state laws don’t help. A new Human Rights Watch report card grades all 50 states on their laws related to child marriage, child labor, juvenile justice and corporal punishment. Pennsylvania and 25 others got a “D.” We gave 20 states a failing “F” grade.
Not a single state received an “A” or even a “B.” New Jersey, Ohio, Iowa and Minnesota were the only states to receive a “C” grade. Mississippi, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Georgia and Washington came out at the bottom of our ranking.
Pennsylvania scored well on child marriage, as one of only seven U.S. states that has banned anyone under the age of 18 from being married. Forty-three other states still allow child marriage, and more than a quarter-million children, some as young as 10, were married in the United States between 2000 and 2018.
On other protections for children, however, Pennsylvania performed poorly. For example, Pennsylvania’s weak child labor laws allow having children as young as 12 work 50 or 60 hours a week in agriculture, the most dangerous type of job for children in the United States.
Pennsylvania is among the half of U.S. states that allow sentencing children under 18 to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The state’s laws also allow trying children as adults, and sending children as young as 10 to trial in juvenile courts.
Nationwide, more than 50,000 children are tried in adult courts each year. In many cases, this results in extreme and punitive prison sentences and higher recidivism rates.
Our research found that no state prohibits violence in disciplining children. Pennsylvania has prohibited corporal punishment in public schools and institutions, but still allows violent discipline in private schools and in the home.
Nationwide, approximately 160,000 children are subjected to corporal punishment in schools each year, despite extensive research finding that paddling children is ineffective in correcting their behavior, conversely resulting in increased child aggression.
All of these practices violate international standards, and several disproportionately affect children of color and children with disabilities. For example, 62 percent of those serving sentences of life without parole for offenses committed as children are Black, even though they make up only 14 percent of the total youth population in the United States. In some school districts, children with disabilities are more than five times as likely to experience violent punishment as other children.
Some states have taken recent action to improve their protection of children. Massachusetts banned child marriage this year and Maryland improved its juvenile justice laws, raising their rankings on our report card.
The U.N. adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the primary international treaty on the rights of children, in 1989. It addresses children’s rights to education, to health, to an adequate standard of living, to freedom of expression, protection from violence and exploitation and a broad array of other rights. The U.S. failure to ratify the Convention and live up to its principles not only harms our children, but undermines our influence globally as a leader on human rights.
To do right by its children, the United States should ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In Pennsylvania, policymakers should take a hard look at the report card for their state and take action to improve legal protections for children. Neither state nor federal policymakers should tolerate laws that put children at risk.