UNICEF releases The State of the World's Children 2005
Thursday, Dec 09, 2004
December 9, 2004 --More than half of all children in the world are suffering extreme deprivations from poverty, armed conflict and AIDS, according to UNICEF's The State of the World's Children report, an annual barometer measuring the situation facing children around the world.
"For every child enjoying what we consider to be a normal childhood, there is a child going to bed hungry, watching a parent die from AIDS, or living in a refugee camp after being forced to flee from home by war and violence," says David Agnew, president and CEO, UNICEF Canada. "Despite some progress over the last decade, we are continuing to deny one billion girls and boys the opportunity to grow up healthy and safe."
Childhood is an irreplaceable period of time for children to grow and develop, and the quality of those years is essential to ensuring their health and safety. Failure to protect children's well being causes permanent damage - to children, their families, their communities and ultimately society's ability to secure human rights and promote economic advancement.
This year's The State of the World's Children report, themed Childhood Under Threat, argues that children experience poverty differently from adults and its impact cannot be measured by traditional income or consumption assessments. The essentials being denied to one billion children, with 700 million children lacking two or more of them, include adequate shelter, sanitation, safe water, information, health-care services, education and adequate food.
Since the 1989 adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child – the world's most widely adopted human rights treaty – there have been significant advances through providing food, water, health care, education and other essentials to child survival. There has also been growing worldwide awareness of the need to put formal measures in place to protect children from exploitation, abuse and violence. However, many of the gains achieved are in serious danger of being undermined by the three most devastating threats to children today: poverty, HIV/AIDS, and armed conflict.
In 2003 alone, 10.6 million children died before they reached their fifth birthday – equivalent to one and a half times the entire population of children in Canada. The majority of these deaths could have been prevented with adequate food, clean water, immunization and basic medical care. When conflict strikes, the effect is even more catastrophic, as 13 per cent more children under five years of age die in a typical five-year war. Children account for nearly half of the 3.6 million people killed in conflicts since 1990. In addition to the devastation on children's physical health, hundreds of thousands of children suffer the trauma of being recruited or abducted as child soldiers, injured by landmines, raped as a weapon of war and witnessing violence to their families that often leaves them orphaned.
Now the single largest killer of people aged 15-49 worldwide, AIDS is also waging war on children. Its devastation is most clear among the 15 million children who have been orphaned by this disease. The death of a parent pervades every aspect of a child's life, from emotional well being to physical security, mental development and overall health. But the report also finds that the effects of HIV/AIDS begin harming children long before they become orphaned. Because of the parent's inability to work, many children, especially girls, are forced to drop out of school to work or care for their families, and are in particular danger of being exploited through hazardous labour.
HIV/AIDS is not only killing parents, but many of the other protective adults in children's lives, including teachers and health workers. Because of the time lag between HIV infection and death from AIDS, the crisis will worsen for at least the next decade, even if new infections are stabilized or begin to fall. The State of the World's Children report details the actions the international community must take to prevent the spread of AIDS, keep adults living with HIV alive, and provide support and care for children who become orphaned. Currently, 93 per cent of people in developing countries who need antiretroviral therapy to treat HIV simply do not have access to the kind of drugs that are readily available in Canada – a problem that must be addressed to save millions of lives, and prevent mother-to-child transmission of the disease.
"The State of the World's Children report forces us, as Canadians and as part of the international community, to face head-on the harsh realities children are living," says Agnew. "But the good news is that it is possible to change this reality, no matter how daunting it may seem. In Canada, we have the capacity to make an enormous impact by ensuring our policies and actions always keep children at the centre. The Canadian government has made significant contributions to development and humanitarian initiatives, but we must do more. We can, and must, take on a larger leadership role as a nation, as individuals and businesses, to alleviate the suffering that half the world's children are experiencing."
View State of the World's Children 2005
UNICEF is the world's leader for children, working in 158 countries and territories to save, protect and enhance the lives of children and their families. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing nations, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, promotes quality basic education for all boys and girls, and protects children from violence, exploitation and AIDS. With almost 60 years of experience, UNICEF is funded entirely by voluntary contributions from individuals, businesses foundations and governments. Through fundraising and education, UNICEF Canada is dedicated to improving the lives of children around the world.
David Agnew has travelled extensively to developing nations and met many children behind the statistics, including children orphaned by AIDS in Zimbabwe, children who have fled to camps in Sudan and children struggling to survive in Cambodia.
B-roll is available digitally at www.thenewsmarket.com (keyword UNICEF) or on beta by request.
To arrange an interview or for more information, please contact:
Nicole Ireland, National Communications
UNICEF Canada
Telephone: (416) 482-4444, ext. 831
Cellular: (416) 992-7349
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http://www.unicef.ca/press/SOWC/
The State of the World’s Children 2005:
Childhood Under Threat
The State of the World’s Children 2005 focuses on how poverty, conflict and HIV/AIDS threaten the idea of childhood as a period of time for children to grow and develop to their full potential.
UNICEF/HQ91-0914/Roger LeMoyne
Childhood is a special time in each individual’s life – a time when they should be encouraged to learn and play by their family and an extended community of caring adults – and an essential element in the development of healthy and productive future generations. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, offers a new definition of childhood based on human rights. It heralded significant advances in the fulfilment of children’s rights to survival, health and education through the provision of essential goods and services, and a growing recognition of the need to create a protective environment to shield children from exploitation, abuse and violence.
However, in several regions and countries, some of these gains are in danger of reversal as a result of poverty, conflict and HIV/AIDS. The rights of over 1 billion children are violated because they are denied of one or more of the basic services required to survive, grow and develop. Millions of children are growing up in families and communities torn apart by armed conflict. In sub-Saharan Africa, HIV/AIDS has led to increasing child mortality rates, dramatic reductions in life expectancy and millions of orphans.
These are not the only factors that undermine childhood, but they are certainly among the most significant, with profoundly damaging effects on a child’s chances of survival and development. The harm they cause lingers well beyond the years of childhood, increasing the likelihood that the next generation will be affected by the same threats and endangering the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
“Only as we move closer to realizing the rights of all children will countries move closer to their goals of development and peace.” ---Kofi A. Annan
UN warns of triple child scourges
By Paul Anderson
BBC News, Islamabad
Children are on the frontline of the Aids scourge
Children are the first to suffer from the scourge of Aids, war and poverty, the head of Unicef has said.
Carol Bellamy said progress had been made on their welfare and human rights but there was still more to be done.
She was speaking in Pakistan three days ahead of the publication in London of a major report by the UN agency, entitled "Childhood under Threat".
She cited Pakistan and Iraq as examples where children's health and education was suffering.
'Total mess'
Ms Bellamy said education in Iraq was a good example, where the country's schools were in her words 'a total mess' - much of it the result of the recent war.
And the UN's children's fund head said countries like Pakistan could do more to address children's health and education interests.
The country has a bloated expenditure on the military and small spending on education so that it lags even behind impoverished neighbours like Bangladesh in many spheres.
Ms Bellamy said 60% of child deaths in Pakistan could be avoided by focusing on a limited number of treatable diseases like diarrhoea, pneumonia and neonatal infections.
In the last budget, Pakistan increased spending in the social development sector.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has repeatedly promised to work towards alleviating poverty, but millions of people have yet to feel the results.
Ms Bellamy said Aids and conflict were having an enormous impact on the lives of children and preventing the world from meeting its development goals.
Although advances had been made in children's welfare and human rights, she said more challenges lay ahead.
Libya Will Not Execute Six Health Workers Accused of Intentionally Infecting Children With HIV, Kadafi's Son Says
[Dec 09, 2004]
The son of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi on Wednesday said that the government will not execute five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who have been convicted of intentionally infecting hundreds of children in the country with HIV, the New York Times reports (Smith, New York Times, 12/9). A five-judge panel of a Libyan court in May sentenced to death by firing squad the health workers, who have been detained in Libya since 1999 and have been accused of deliberately infecting more than 400 children with HIV through contaminated blood products. The health workers also were ordered to pay a total of $1 million to the families of the children, 43 of whom have died. Kadafi accused the health workers of taking orders from the CIA and the Israeli secret service to kill Libyan children in order to destabilize the country. However, some European governments and human rights groups say that the Libyan Health Ministry failed to screen blood products adequately and allowed poor sterilization practices at Al Fateh Children's Hospital in Benghazi, where the health care workers were employed and where the children were infected. Two of the workers and the Palestinian doctor have said that they had been tortured into making confessions. During their trial, Dr. Luc Montagnier, co-discoverer of HIV, testified that he believed the children were infected in 1997, more than a year before the Bulgarians were hired (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 12/7). Seif al-Islam el-Kadafi, Moammar's son, on Wednesday said, "No one is going to execute anyone." He added that the Libyan government is expected over the next two months to pass a new law limiting the use of capital punishment to "a small number of crimes," according to the Times. Although Kadafi's son holds "no official position" in the government, he heads an organization that is helping to negotiate a resolution in the case and is "believed to speak with the backing of his father," the Times reports.
Possible Extradition
Kadafi said Libya might seek to extradite the Bulgarian nurses to Bulgaria but did not say what might be done with the Palestinian doctor. Kadafi also suggested that in exchange for the extradition of the workers, the country might ask for the extradition of a Libyan man serving a life sentence in Scotland for the 1988 crash of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, according to the Times. In addition, Libyan officials have said that a re-examination of the health care workers' death sentences would depend on Bulgaria paying compensation to the families of the HIV-positive children. However, Bulgaria has refused to pay any compensation, saying that doing so would acknowledge guilt on the part of the health workers, the Times reports. "I think we have to extradite them at a certain stage because we have an extradition treaty with Bulgaria," Kadafi said, adding, "But first we have to satisfy the families, compensation and a medical solution long term for their children" (New York Times, 12/9). Ramadan al-Fituri, director of the association representing the HIV-positive children, on Wednesday said that Libya would drop the case against the health workers if Bulgaria pays about $13.3 million for every child infected with HIV, AFP/Mail and Guardian reports. Fituri on Tuesday said that the charges against the six health workers would be dropped if the children receive treatment at medical centers in Europe and all "necessary medicines," a new specialized hospital in Benghazi is built in Libya and "adequate compensation" is paid to the children's families, according to AFP/Mail and Guardian (AFP/Mail and Guardian, 12/9).
More Than 1B Children Worldwide Face 'Brutal Existence' Because of HIV/AIDS, Poverty, Conflict, UNICEF Report Says
[Dec 09, 2004]
More than one billion children worldwide face a "brutal existence" because of HIV/AIDS, poverty and armed conflict, according to a UNICEF report released Thursday, BBC News reports (BBC News, 12/9). The annual report, titled "Childhood Under Threat," examines the impact of HIV/AIDS, poverty and war -- three of the most "widespread and devastating factors threatening childhood today" -- on children around the world, according to a UNICEF release. Working in collaboration with researchers from the London School of Economics and Bristol University, UNICEF found that more than one billion children are "denied the healthy and protected upbringing" guaranteed by the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy (UNICEF release, 12/9).
HIV/AIDS
According to Peter McDermott, head of UNICEF's HIV/AIDS program, the pandemic's impact on children is "huge and getting worse. In fact, the worst is yet to come" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 12/8). Almost 500,000 children under 15 years old died of AIDS-related causes in 2003, and an additional 630,000 children were infected with HIV during 2003, according to UNICEF estimates. Approximately 2.1 million children under age 15 were living with HIV/AIDS in 2003, most of whom contracted the virus in utero, during birth or through breastfeeding, according to the report. The number of children worldwide who have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS increased from 11.5 million to 15 million between 2001 and 2003, and 80% of those children live in sub-Saharan Africa (AP/Yahoo! News, 12/9). The report also estimates that by 2010, more than 18 million African children will have lost one or both parents to AIDS-related causes unless "swift action [is] taken," Reuters reports (Lovell, Reuters, 12/9). AFP/Yahoo! News reports that millions of children also were "transformed into care providers for sick parents and siblings" between 2001 and 2003 (AFP/Yahoo! News, 12/8). "AIDS is the new factor in the last decade or so on the block, and it is having a vicious effect in some countries," David Agnew, president of UNICEF Canada, said, adding, "There is absolutely no question that in some countries, we are going backwards, and those are countries that are affected by intense and enduring conflict -- or the majority of them are the ones that have the highest HIV infection rates and AIDS death rates" (Oziewicz, Globe and Mail, 12/9).
Other Findings
The report also found that approximately 640 million children worldwide lack adequate shelter; 400 million children do not have access to safe water; 270 million children do not have access to health care; and 140 million children, most of whom are girls, have never attended school (AFP/Yahoo! News, 12/8). The mortality rate for children under five in sub-Saharan Africa in 2003 was 175 deaths per 1,000 children, compared with a world average of 80 deaths per 1,000 children. The report also determined that maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa in 2003 was 940 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with a global average of 400 deaths per 100,000 live births (Reuters, 12/9). Of the 27 countries with the highest child mortality rates, 26 are located in Africa -- only Afghanistan was outside of the region. According to the report, Sierra Leone is the "most deadly place for a child," with a mortality rate for children under age five at nearly 30%, according to the Boston Globe (Donnelly, Boston Globe, 12/9). Almost half of the 3.6 million people killed in armed conflict worldwide since 1990 have been children, according to UNICEF. "Too many governments are making informed, deliberate choices that actually hurt childhood," Bellamy said, adding, "When half the world's children are growing up hungry and unhealthy, when schools have become targets and whole villages are being emptied by AIDS, we've failed to deliver on the promise of childhood" (BBC News, 12/9).
Reaction
Although Bellamy said that the "blame mostly rest[s]" with countries that failed to adequately address the HIV/AIDS pandemic and poverty or prevent armed conflict, some of her "critics" said the report was "full of evidence that she had failed to emphasize childhood survival," according to the Globe (Boston Globe, 12/9). In a comment published in the Dec. 3 issue of the journal Lancet, editor Richard Horton wrote that it is "widely, if regrettably, accepted that UNICEF has lost its way during Carol Bellamy's long term of office" (Horton, Lancet, 12/3). "The right to survival is the most critical right for a child," Dr. Robert Black, chair of international health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, said, asking, "If we can't put our focus on that, how meaningful is the rest of the discussion on child rights?" However, Bellamy, who will step down as UNICEF executive director next year, has "defended her priorities over the past decade" and said she was "proud we have embraced a child's rights approach, advocating that children not be seen as charitable instruments, if you will, but human beings that have rights," the Globe reports. She added that "child rights has not been a diversion from survival. The rights of a child are not only to survive but to thrive, not to become a victim of HIV/AIDS, not to be exploited, not to be abused. The world doesn't stop at simple survival." Mark Rosenberg, executive director of the Task Force for Child Survival and Development who supports Bellamy's view, said that her successor should "develop closer relationships" with other U.N. agencies, especially the World Health Organization, as well as the U.S. government and organizations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, according to the Globe (Boston Globe, 12/9).
Child Marriage Puts Girls Worldwide at Risk of HIV/AIDS, Early Pregnancy; Ill. Sen. Durbin Drafts Legislation
[Dec 09, 2004]
Child marriage -- which affects about 51 million girls in developing countries worldwide -- puts women at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS or developing health complications from becoming pregnant at an early age, the Chicago Tribune reports. Girls who are married at a young age and become pregnant before their bodies are prepared to endure pregnancy and delivery may experience obstetric fistula. The condition, caused by ruptured tissue in the birth canal, can lead to continuous and uncontrollable leakage of feces and urine. Girls who develop obstetric fistula often are shunned by their families and communities because of the stigma attached to the condition, according to Geeta Rao Gupta, president of the International Center for Research on Women. About 100,000 new cases of obstetric fistula occur annually among girls, and about two million women worldwide are affected, according to the Tribune. Child marriage also can put young women at risk of contracting HIV. Girls often are married to older men, and the "unequal balance of power" makes young women "less able to negotiate the use of condoms" to protect against infection, according to the Tribune.
Economic Impact
Child marriage -- which is "common" in India, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa -- has "negative and lasting" consequences for women's health, education and overall economic development, Rao Gupta said, the Tribune reports. The practice "perpetuates poverty" because girls stop going to school when they get married and subsequently miss out on "economic opportunities," Rao Gupta said, according to the Tribune. Studies show that the children of educated women are more likely to be educated and are healthier than the children of less-educated women, according to Rao Gupta. Early marriage and pregnancy also can limit young women from participating in society, according to Rao Gupta. "She is not able to feed her children, not able to engage in her community," Rao Gupta said, adding, "What we are trying to do is encourage economic growth and equity in society, and both those things are negatively affected by child marriage."
Relevant Links
North Africa
Legal and Judicial Affairs
Libya
HIV-Aids and STDs
Legislation
After learning of the "long-term ramifications" of child marriage, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) drafted legislation aimed at "curbing the practice in the developing world," the Tribune reports. Durbin currently is seeking a Republican co-sponsor for the bill, which he plans to introduce in January, according to Joe Shoemaker, Durbin's press secretary. One of the bill's provisions directs the secretary of state to develop a "comprehensive" three-year plan to prioritize in foreign aid programs that focus on adolescent health, delaying marriage among adolescents and first pregnancies among married adolescents, according to the Tribune. Durbin said, "If we are to promote the economic and social development of all the world's children, we must work to give girls a chance to grow up before they marry." He added, "I believe that you can tell the most about the potential future of a country by asking one simple question: How do they treat their women and girls? If they hold them back, that country is likely to struggle. If they fully include them and treat them as equals, that country is likely to advance much more rapidly" (Lauerman, Chicago Tribune, 12/8).
死亡是恆久的禁忌話題,本屆紀錄片則以「凝視死亡」單元來處理,法國作家艾維吉伯罹患愛滋病瀕臨死亡,他用攝影機拍下死前的生活成為《拘謹與放肆》一片;好友蘇菲卡勒拍的《No Sex Last Night》看似與死亡無關,其實片中籠罩凝重死亡陰影,她並在片中打電話給死去的艾維,只為了想聽聽他留在答錄機的聲音。