Background
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This map does not reflect a position by UNICEF on the legal status of any country or territory or the delimitation of any frontiers.
Armed conflict between the government (concentrated in the south) and the rebel Forces Nouvelles (which control much of the country, primarily in the north) has continued for several years. UN peacekeepers patrol a buffer zone in between, maintaining a tenuous situation described as ‘No Peace, No War’.
Thousands have fled their homes, most taking refuge in government-controlled areas, overwhelming the health and education services available there.
Issues facing children in Côte d’Ivoire
- Côte d’Ivoire’s infant and under-five mortality rates are among the highest in the world, and rising. Malaria, measles and respiratory infections are the deadliest threats to children. Acute malnutrition is also increasing.
- Just 50 per cent of children under age one are fully immunized against the major vaccine-preventable diseases. In the north, many vaccination programs have ceased altogether.
- An estimated 7 per cent of the population is HIV-positive.
- Two thirds of boys are enrolled in primary school, but only half of girls. Almost a million children, most of them in the north, do not attend school at all.
- Some 3,000 children are being used as soldiers. Sexual abuse, exploitation and violence against children have become increasingly common.
Activities and results for children
- UNICEF and its partners successfully reopened 86 per cent of the health centres in the north, which had closed when their staffs fled. UNICEF played a major role in training hundreds of medical personnel, rehabilitating maternity wards and supplying medications and equipment. Some 120,000 insecticide-treated bed nets were distributed to prevent malaria.
- Five million children were immunized against polio, lowering incidence from 17 cases in 2004 to zero in 2005. An additional 7.5 million children received measles vaccinations, and nearly 4 million children received vitamin A supplements. Guinea worm cases have declined by half.
- UNICEF and its partners provided 350,000 school kits and helped to rebuild and repair schools damaged by warfare.
- Water supplies in more than 1,100 villages were rehabilitated, providing 600,000 people with access to clean water. In drought-stricken Korogho, water was trucked in to supply 150,000 residents for three months.
- Nearly 1,000 former child soldiers have been demobilized and are being reintegrated into mainstream society.
- More than 10,000 orphans who are HIV-positive are being supported with medications, nutrition and education.
