A World Focus on Keeping Children Safe

Much has changed in the world for children since the Industrial Revolution of the 1700s, when child labor was commonplace^.1 Within two centuries, since the early 1900s, the world has seen laws against child labor prevail, and the focus for children has become their education. Most countries in the world, as the eleven case chapters in this volume note, have taken steps to ensure that education is available to all children well into their teens. The world's acceptance of childhood as an important stage of human development and the understanding that children must be protected and permitted to flourish formed the backdrop for the creation of the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the child (CRC), which was signed in November 20, 1989. ²