Dear UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russel,

Recent fundraising efforts by UNICEF are inaccurate. The organization is not pegging family planning policies and practices to the standards of the Children’s Rights Convention. That means children are constantly born into conditions – under the approval of the UN – that violate the Convention. Pulling them out later is not enough.

Who benefits from this lie? Wealthy people who wish to exploit children. That’s not right.

Fact: UNICEF is reading the Convention in ways that guarantee children will not actually be protected, that their very creation will degrade the social and ecological conditions they need to thrive, and that they will be exploited by the powerful due to the conditions in which they will be born and raised.

UNICEF is reading the Convention in a way that exacerbates the climate crisis, which threatens their future.

That has to change. It is the fundament of injustice, destabilizing societies by trading human rights and democracy for economic growth, and justifying violence by those who claim the world is simply not fair.

Please change course and use practical methods to adopt the Convention, with the UNFPA, as the standard for family planning. You are otherwise harming children, and ensuring backlash in the future. Instead, human rights obligate us to treat every child’s right to an ecosocial fair start in life as the first and overriding human right, overriding the property rights of the rich and powerful people pushing women to have kids, the people UNICEF is not willing to confront.

The Team at Fair Start Movement

Take action: Contact UNICEF and urge Russell to stop misleading people and harming our future.