Major media organizations in the world have launched a 24-hour relay broadcast for children's rights on Universal Children's Day, which falls on Friday.

The global media campaign, also called the "Global News Day for Children" program, was initiated by Xinhua News Agency and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to highlight the international media's role in helping improve children's living environments and promoting their healthy development.

Starting from 8 a.m. (Beijing time) Friday, Xinhua has been working with all participating media organizations in launching 16hours of Chinese-language coverage and eight hours of English-language coverage of education, culture, globalization, environment protection, disability, sport, charity, conflict, and traditions that are closely connected to children's lives and development.

It will include the sharing of TV specials, joint TV coverage of the global events marking Universal Children's Day, exchanges of TV programs and the live broadcasts of text, photos, audio and video on each other's platforms.

These reports, including hard news, features, commentaries and backgrounders, will all carry "Universal Children's Day" in the headline and will be categorized into special fields such as "rights and interests," "on being strong," "education" and "environmental protection."

Xinhua has mobilized all its 31 domestic bureaus and 118 overseas branches to provide subscribers with news and information in text, photos, graphics, audio, video, online and text message formats and in eight languages: Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese and Japanese.

World leaders adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in United Nation's General Assembly on Nov. 20th, 1989. Since its inception 20 years ago, the convention has become the most ratified human rights treaty in history, according to UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman.