Today, across the Atlantic Ocean, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi are accepting their Nobel Peace Prizes in Oslo. It is noteworthy that these two champions of children's rights were selected this very year.

Twenty-five years ago in November — on the 20th, to be exact — the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and opened it for signatures from countries around the globe. In the treaty are articles designed to protect and promote the rights of all children — the right to speak their minds and be heard; the right to be protected from exploitation; the right to quality health care and education; the right to play and have fun; and the right to not fight in wars or work in unhealthy or unsafe environments, among others.

The selection of Yousafzai and Satyarthi as the most recent Nobel Peace Prize laureates reminds us of the importance of these rights. Today, more children (and girls) are going to school. Fewer children under age 5 are dying. Countless policies and laws have been enacted around the globe to support children and their specific rights. We have made progress since 1989, but we still have a long way to go.

This year, the UNCRC is a quarter-century old. In schools around the world, children and teachers are celebrating. Indeed, you can walk into pretty much any classroom in Norway and ask a 9-year-old: "What rights do children have?" He or she will start listing them: "I have a right to shelter and to school and to protection from abuse and to get healthy if I am sick …" These children know their rights because Norway not only has ratified the UNCRC, it has incorporated it into Norwegian law. Schools teach about children's rights because Article 42 says that children have the right to know their rights.

This celebratory year will come and go as any other in the United States, because this country has yet to ratify the UNCRC. If we were to walk into a middle school in Minneapolis and ask "What rights do children have?" we likely would be faced with blank stares.

The need for the United States to ratify the UNCRC is as palpable today as it was 25 years ago. Though real and meaningful change has been made, pressing concerns remain both globally and in Minnesota.

Globally, children continue to be those most affected by war, conflict and a changing world that threatens our ability to provide resources for the most basic human needs. The images of conflict around the world in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Sudan and Nigeria, to name just a few, are the faces of children.

In the United States, the needs of thousands of refugee, immigrant and undocumented minors are palpable not only along the southern border; they permeate every state, including Minnesota. The plight of African-American boys who are as likely to be incarcerated as they are to graduate from high school is a children's rights issue. This is happening not just in Ferguson, Mo., and New York, but here. The Minnesota Department of Health recently released a report documenting the institutional racism that contributes to disparities in health, education and life expectancy in our state and community.

Today, as the world turns its attention to Oslo and children's rights, let us celebrate as much as they will in Norway and Guatemala and Ethiopia. Our voices must be loud and clear so as to help give "voice" to our children. After 25 years, we ask President Obama to call for a vote and we ask Minnesota's U.S. senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, to be champions for ratification.

Rachel Peterson lived in Norway for nine years and worked as regional director for Save the Children before moving back to Minnesota in 2013. Dr. Charles Oberg, a Minnesota pediatrician, is a district vice chair for the American Academy of Pediatrics.