June 1st International Children's Day (六一国际儿童节 Liuyi Guoji Ertong Jie)

Date: June 1st

June 1st Children's Day is a festival for the children all over the world. In August 1925, representatives from 54 countries gathered together in Geneva, Switzerland, to hold the International Conference for Children's Happiness, and passed a document, Geneva Manifesto for Safeguarding Children. This document involved various aspects about children issues, including the spiritual entertainment of children, the relief of poor children, the avoidance of dangerous work for children, children's acquisition of making a living, how to raise and educate children, and etc. Since this conference, governments of many countries had successively set "Children's Day," to inspire children and make them happy, and also to arouse the whole society's attention and protection for children.

The origin of the international festival was during the World War Ⅱ. In June 1942, German Fascists shot about 140 male villagers above 16 years old and all the babies in a village of Czechoslovakia, and took all the women and 90 children to a concentration camp.

In order to mourn for all the children who died in this village and all over the world during the anti-Fascist War, in order to oppose the imperialistic warmonger slaughtering children, and in order to safeguard children's rights for survival, health care and education, the International Democratic Society of Women held a conference of its executive committee in Moscow in November 1949, formally made a resolution that June 1st of every year would be a festival for children all over the world, namely Children's Day.

Since 1931 in China, according to the advice of China's Charity Society, April 4th of every year had been the Children's Day. After the foundation of PRC, the central government regulated in 1949 that June 1st would be the Children's Day of New China.

At present, governments of all countries care for children's future and protect children's rights. In 1990, the UN passed the Pact for Children's Rights, and China is one of the countries that participated in drafting out the pact and signed on it. In the same year when the government ratified the Pact for Children's Rights, China enacted the Law for Protecting Non-adults of the PRC, which played an active role in safeguarding children's rights. Under the care of the government, the whole society has taken the responsibilities of protecting and educating children. They have good conditions for life, study and health care. They can grow up healthily and happily. Now on June 1st Children's Day, all the children under the age of 13 have a one-day holiday. In some places, the local government regulates that children's parents can also enjoy the one-day holiday. As "little super stars" of that day, children are usually accompanied by their parents to go to parks, zoos, pleasure grounds, or visit science ﹠ technology expositions, museums, and planetariums, or take part in some activities with special topics (such as the contest of Chinese calligraphy and drawings) in children's activity centers. In a word, the children fully enjoy themselves in this festival of their own.