Speaking Up For Themselves.(street kids in India)

The Bal Vikas bank has some strict rules: no loans for drug peddlers, sex abusers, pickpockets, liquor or cigarette salespeople--or anyone under 14. Then again, the bankers themselves aren't exactly pin-striped fogies: they're a group of Delhi street kids, 8 to 18, who save the cash they earn as ragpickers, shoeshine boys or dishwashers. The Bal Sabha--or Children's Council--that runs the bank also operates a health co-op, a trade union and a radio station. " [The Bal Sabha] doesn't tell us what to do," says Anuj Chowdhury, a 14-year-old ragpicker. "We tell it what to do."

Britney Spears concerts and sparkly nail polish are hardly the only signs that children are growing up faster these days. In some parts of the world, they actually run banks, stage labor strikes and lobby for better health care. Over the past decade, organizations like the Bal Sabha have been springing up to give children more control over their lives. Spurred on by the global child-rights movement, they have gained clout under the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), ratified by 191 nations, which commits governments to protecting children's basic rights--including full participation in family, social and cultural life. Next week children's right to be heard on decisions affecting them--Article 12 in the CRC--will be on display at the United Nations. During a special session, children will address the General Assembly for the first time. Kids from 101 countries have registered as delegates, and will discuss issues ranging from poverty to AIDS.

Can--and should--children advocate for themselves? Throughout most of history, the young have been regarded as society's most powerless and vulnerable members, in need of adult protection. But increasingly children are becoming politicized actors with agendas of their own. "Children are in a similar position to women 20 years back," notes Save the Children's Bill Bell. "Traditionally, they've been marginalized and invisible. Because they don't have the vote, governments have to make an effort to listen to them through consultation."

Already the movement is bringing about change. In 1993 an Indian bureaucrat burned a 15-year-old servant so badly he died. After the official was charged only with attempted murder, Bal Sabha kids took to the streets. Delhi's chief minister heard them out, and had the man charged with murder; today he's serving a life sentence, and government officials are barred from employing child servants. To show they're letting kids have their say, governments from Botswana to Britain have started children's commissions or units to consult young people. And increasingly, NGOs are meeting with children to discuss local issues that affect them--such as where to build a school. "Article 12 is about trying to inform decisions with children's own experience," says Bell. "It's respectful of the fact that they are human beings."

Not everyone agrees that children are their own best advocates. As one critic noted, the battle lines have been drawn: on one side are "kiddy libbers," who want to free children from the oppression of adults. On the other: "kiddy savers," intent on saving children from a dangerous world. Among the kiddy savers are trade unionists and activists who argue that organizing child laborers under the CRC is counterproductive because it legitimizes child labor. "If [child labor] is not totally eliminated, employers will just keep on hiring ...