CSDC 245

The situation of a vast number of the world's children is far from being satisfactory, due to the lack of favourable conditions for their integral development despite the existence of a specific international juridical instrument for protecting their rights⁵⁵⁷ Cf. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which came into force in 1990 and which the Holy See has ratified., an instrument that is binding on practically all members of the international community. These are conditions connected with the lack of health care, or adequate food supply, little or no possibility of receiving a minimum of academic formation or inadequate shelter. Moreover, some serious problems remain unsolved: trafficking in children, child labour, the phenomenon of “street children”, the use of children in armed conflicts, child marriage, the use of children for commerce in pornographic material, also in the use of the most modern and sophisticated instruments of social communication. It is essential to engage in a battle, at the national and international levels, against the violations of the dignity of boys and girls caused by sexual exploitation, by those caught up in paedophilia, and by every kind of violence directed against these most defenceless of human creatures⁵⁵⁸ Cf. John Paul II, Message for the 1996 World Day of Peace, 2-6: AAS 88AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 88 (1996) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1996), 104-107.. These are criminal acts that must be effectively fought with adequate preventive and penal measures by the determined action of the different authorities involved.