Jordan Times
Sunday, December 12, 2004
State of the World's Children
Report to be launched Tuesday
By Dalya Dajani, Jordan Times
AMMAN, December 12 - UNICEF, the international children's fund, will launch its
2005 State of the World's Children Report on Tuesday, providing a fresh insight
into the deprivations faced by this segment worldwide.
The report, entitled “Childhood Under Threat,” examines three of the most
widespread and devastating factors threatening childhood today: HIV/AIDS,
conflict and poverty.
The report reveals that despite their universal commitments towards protecting
children, many governments around the world continue to fall short of adequately
securing that goal.
Under the present global conditions of conflict, poverty and AIDS, UNICEF
Executive Director Carol Bellamy described childhood for half of the world's
children as a “brutal experience.”
“Too many governments are making informed, deliberate choices that actually hurt
childhood,” Bellamy said during the report's launch at the London School of
Economics last week.
“Poverty doesn't come from nowhere; war doesn't emerge from nothing; AIDS
doesn't spread by choice of its own. These are our choices,” she added.
The report reminds governments signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the
Child — the world's most widely adopted human rights treaty — that their failure
to live up to the convention's standards is a hindrance to children's
development, human rights and economic advancement.
The report, scheduled for launch this week under the patronage of Her Majesty
Queen Rania, also focuses on some of the challenges facing children in this
region of the world.
Despite setbacks in some areas, the report shows that Arab countries have made
significant advances in the field of child and maternal healthcare.
According to the report, Arab countries achieved one of the fastest rates of
progress in reduction of child mortality and increased and sustained high
immunization coverage.
But even with child mortality reduced by nearly two-thirds in the past decade,
some 600,000 children under five continue to die every year in the Arab world.
At least half of these deaths are easily preventable through improved nutrition
and immunization interventions.
The report also features the largely taboo subject of HIV/AIDS, where headway is
being made in breaking the silence.
It focuses on young girls and women in particular who continue to represent the
most vulnerable group. In the Arab world, three out of four young people living
with HIV are young girls.
As part of its study, the report examines how persisting gender inequalities and
systematic discrimination hinder women from knowing their actual risk and reduce
their access to adequate treatment.
The report also highlights the impact of war and conflict on the health and
welfare of children around the world.
UNICEF cites examples in Sudan, the Palestinian territories and Iraq where
thousands of children are suppressed by the ongoing violence and face setbacks
in their health and well-being.
According to the report, under-five mortality rates increase by 13 per cent in a
typical five-year war.
Latest statistics also reveal that around 640 million children do not have
adequate shelter, while 500 million others have no access to sanitation. Some
400 million children also do not have access to safe water, while 90 million
children are severely food deprived.