Unicef report: 1bn children suffering James Sturcke and agencies Thursday December 9, 2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1370066,00.html
More than half the world's children are suffering extreme effects of poverty, war and HIV/Aids, denying them a healthy and safe childhood, according to a report published today. The Unicef annual report on The State of the World's Children found more than 1 billion children were growing up hungry and unhealthy, schools had become targets for warring parties, and whole villages were being killed off by Aids. Unicef said a failure by governments around the world to live up to standards outlined in 1989's Convention on the Rights of the Child caused permanent damage to children and blocked progress toward human rights and economic advancement. "Too many governments are making informed, deliberate choices that actually hurt childhood," Carol Bellamy, the agency's executive director, said. She added: "Poverty doesn't come from nowhere. When half the world's children are growing up hungry and unhealthy, when schools have become targets and whole villages emptied by Aids, we've failed to deliver on the promise of childhood." The report, compiled by Unicef and researchers at the London School of Economics and Bristol University, found over half the children in developing countries were seriously deprived without access to basic goods and services. Its other main conclusions were that one in six children was severely hungry, one in seven had no access to health care, one in five had no safe water, and one in three had no toilet or sanitation facilities at home. The report said there were currently 2.1 billion children in the world, with 1.9 billion living in developing countries. It found 640 million children did not have adequate shelter and 140 million, the majority of them girls, had never been to school. The agency said poverty was not confined to developing countries, with the proportion of children living in low-income households in 11 of 15 industrialised nations rising in the past decade. More than 10 million child deaths were recorded in 2003, with an estimated 29,158 children under five dying from mostly preventable deaths every day. Unicef said conflict around the world had seriously injured or permanently disabled millions of children, while millions more endured sexual violence, trauma, hunger and disease caused by wars. Nearly half of the 3.6 million people killed in conflict during the 1990s were children and around 20 million children were forced from their homes and communities by fighting. The agency added almost half a million children aged under 15 died of Aids in 2003, while a further 630,000 children were infected with HIV. By 2003 some 2.1 million children under 15 were living with HIV/Aids, most of who were infected during pregnancy, birth or through breast-feeding. The report said the world had the capacity to reduce poverty, conflict and HIV/Aids and improve the plight of the world's children. It said Millennium Development Goals, which aim to improve the world through human development by 2015 and were agreed to by the UN's 191 member states in 2000, could be achieved at an annual cost of $40bn (�20.8bn) - $70bn (�36.4bn). World spending on military last year was $956bn (�497.4bn). Full report: www.unicef.org/sowc05/english/sowc05.pdf =========+========= FEEDBACK? http://nativenewsonline.org/Guestbook/guestbook.cgi GIVE FOOD: THE HUNGERSITE http://www.thehungersite.com/ Reprinted under Fair Use http://nativenewsonline.org/fairuse.htm =========+========= Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Native News Online a Service of Barefoot Connection ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Q7_YsB/neXJAA/yQLSAA/1dTolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Nat-International/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
