FOCUS: Children & Islam - The Big Picture

OIC member states account for 11 of the 16 countries with the highest child death rates in the world. Around 4.3 million children under five die each year from preventable disease and malnutrition, over 60% of them dying before their first birthdays. With a few notable exceptions (14 out of 57 countries), all three OIC sub-regions are failing to see the rates of progress needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goal on child mortality.

In sub-Saharan Africa, child mortality rates are more than double the world average, and in Côte d'Ivoire, rates have actually worsened. Access to treatment for acute respiratory infections, malaria and diarrhoea - all major killers of children - remains limited in sub-Saharan Africa. A child born in sub-Saharan Africa can expect to live only 48 years, compared to 78 in industrialized countries.

In many OIC countries, high fertility and lack of access to skilled medical care contribute to some of the highest maternal death rates in the world. Every thirty minutes, an Afghan woman dies during childbirth. In Afghanistan, one is six pregnancies results in death; in the African sub-region the average is 1 in 15. Globally, the average is 1 in 74.

EDUCATION

© UNICEF/ HQ04-0274/ Nesbitt
SUDAN: A crowd of girls assemble in queues outside their school in the Kassab IDP camp near the town of Kutum. In both the town and the camp, UNICEF is supporting the construction of 70 temporary classrooms permitting more than 10,000 children to resume learning.

Large numbers of children in African and Arab countries are still shut out of classrooms, with primary school participation at below 60% in 20 OIC countries. More than half the adult population is illiterate in some countries, and the proportion is as high as 70% among women. Four out of 10 children in the African sub-region are out of school, as are a quarter of children in Arab member states.

Primary school participation in Asian and other OIC countries is about 82%, with good progress toward the gender-parity goals as well. In many African and Arab countries, the gender bias in education has stuck, although there are more girls than boys in school in Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Only 26 out of 57 OIC members are on course to achieve the primary education gender equality targets for 2005.