Research is making clear what must be done to improve the lives of children in ways that affect health in later life but obstacles still stand in the way.

"We can now see in very credible terms the way in which things that happen early in life become determinants of health 30 years later," said Clyde Hertzman of the University of BC, the opening speaker for Monday's plenaries. The British Birth Cohort, consisting of 17,000 children born throughout Britain during the first week of March, 1958, has highlighted three predictors of adult health. These include that children are read to consistently, that they have an easy adjustment to school, and that they reach an optimal proportion of their adult height by age seven, which indicates good physical health.

The industrial world is not doing better than developing nations in fulfilling these requirements. In fact, said Hertzman, the strongest indicator of how a nation is faring seems to be that its official language is not English. Sweden is among nations providing the economic and parental supports that ensure that children from disadvantaged families have an equal opportunity to become productive adults. When Hertzman asked what instigated the measures Sweden has taken over the last half century, he was told it began with the outlawing of corporal punishment, which heralded an environment in which children are seen as individuals with rights.

This shift in thinking is also basic to stopping the violence that pervades many young lives. "There was a moment, a few years back, that has set a course for me ever since," said Lloyd Axworthy, Director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues. At a conference on war-affected children, a young Ugandan woman described for him her abduction into sexual slavery at age nine by a rebel group, her pregnancy at age 11, her request to become a warrior to escape this degradation, and the requirement that she participate in a raid on her own village to prove her mettle.

"Stories like this are repeated daily, hourly, around the world," said Axworthy. Yet for all the efforts made since the passage of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 9/11 changed everything. A UN review of children's rights was postponed, the War on Terrorism was initiated, and individual rights were curtailed. Momentum was lost. Yet children who are abducted into the service of war or who lose their limbs to landmines are equally as deserving of peace and security as those innocent civilians who lost their lives on 9/11.

There must be a reformation in the way we think about security and sovereignty, he said. Sovereignty is not only a right to power but an obligation to govern responsibly. There must be protocols for assessing when governments fail to meet this obligation and for the international community to intervene.

"A child is a sacred gift on loan from the Great Spirit," he said in closing, quoting a Cree elder, "and they must be protected."