Tuesday, 12 October: On the day statisticians
estimate the world's six billionth child will be born, UNICEF said that the
child's chances of surviving to adulthood are at risk.
"We don't know where or when the six billionth baby will be born or
whether he or she will be rich or poor," UNICEF Executive Director Carol
Bellamy said. "But the overwhelming odds are the six billionth child will
be born poor. And we know that in the poorest countries one in three children
will not even live beyond the age of five, much less attain adulthood."
According to Ms. Bellamy, such odds are completely unacceptable in a world
where almost every nation has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the
Child. The Convention states that all children have the right to basic health
and education as well as protection from the ravages of war, hazardous labour
and sexual exploitation.
To improve the prospects of the six billionth child, a broad swath of
interventions are needed. Among these are:
- Close the widening gap between rich and poor. Today, the richest one
fifth of humanity has 82 times the income of the poorest fifth -- and consumes
86 per cent of the world's resources. Poverty disproportionately victimises
children and women. Debt relief and debt cancellation for the world's poorest
nations are among the priority steps that urgently need to be taken.
- Address the growing peril of armed conflicts. These conflicts have
increasingly targeted children and women, degraded societies, brutally harmed
innocents and displaced families. As many as 300,000 children have been pressed
into military service. All nations should approve raising the age of military
recruitment to 18.
- Fulfill the basic right of all children to adequate nutrition. Half
of Africa's children already suffer from illness caused by unsafe drinking
water, poor sanitation and a degraded environment. Proper nutrition is
essential to physical and mental survival, and it can be achieved at very
modest cost.
- Reduce child mortality. Today, nearly 12 million children under the
age of five die needlessly every year, mainly from a handful of easily
preventable childhood diseases. Bring the current effort to eradicate polio to
a successful completion and press for the development of new vaccines to
counter other threats to children.
- Level the playing field so that girls have the same opportunities as
boys. Today, world-wide, 130 million children of primary school age --
mostly girls -- are not in the classroom. The result is a wholesale denial of
the chance for a better future. Girls are also exploited widely as household
labourers and victims of myriad forms of sexual abuse and exploitation.
- Bring illiteracy to an end. One quarter of children in developing
countries who start school cannot stay long enough to ensure lasting literacy.
Babies born to illiterate girls are less likely to survive to adulthood.
Failure to provide every child with a basic education, including reading,
writing and numerical skills, leads to shorter life spans and greater
susceptibility to poverty and illness.
- End violence against girls and women. Rape, female genital
mutilation and other forms of sexual, physical and emotional abuse have no
place in a world that affirms the rights of all children. The determination to
attain gender equality is destined to bring benefits to all the world's
children.
- Reduce early pregnancies. The results of early pregnancy can be
devastating. More than half of all women in Africa and about a third in Latin
America give birth in their teens, and they are twice as likely as adults to
die in childbirth -- and their children are more likely to be born underweight.
Around the world, there is a clear correlation between deep poverty and
maternal mortality. Make safe motherhood a global priority.
- Eliminate hazardous child labour. Some 250 million children are
being robbed of their childhood because they are condemned to child labour.
Education is the key to escaping the vicious cycle of growing up ignorant,
trapped in work that virtually guarantees a life of poverty.
- Stop the mistreatment of minorities. If the six billionth child is
born into a minority ethnic group, either in the developed or developing world,
the chances are that resources for his or her basic health and education will
not be distributed on an equal basis. This denial of rights must be countered
head on.
- Conduct a global campaign against HIV/AIDS. In Africa and Asia and
parts of Eastern Europe, AIDS is taking an enormous toll on the young. The need
for stepped-up campaigns of education and prevention efforts is urgent. AIDS is
now the leading cause of death in Africa.
Ms. Bellamy cited the recent creation of the internet site www.netaid.org
as a hopeful sign that young persons in developing and developed nations can join
forces in helping to address the deep poverty that may confront the six billionth
child. NetAid unites major musical artists, the United Nations Development Program
(UNDP) and Cisco Systems in a co-operative effort to address an entire spectrum
of development issues. The UNICEF Web site at www.unicef.org is linked to the
NetAid site.
"The birth of the six billionth child offers a choice," Ms. Bellamy
said. "Do we want a unified global village where the rights of all
children are honoured or a stratified world where the ideals of the Convention
on the Rights of the Child are merely words on paper?" |
