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Over 1 Billion Children Affected By Poverty, Aids And Conflict-Unicef

This Day (Lagos)
NEWS
December 12, 2004
Posted to the web December 13, 2004

By Iyefu Adoba
Abuja
United Nations Children's Education Fund's (UNICEF) State of the World's
Children 2005 Report launched yesterday in Abuja, reveals that over 1 billion
children worldwide live under the threat of poverty, conflict and HIV/AIDS,
denying them the opportunity of having a normal childhood.
Launching the report entitled, "Children Under Threat," Women Affairs Minister,
Obong Rita Akpan said the report developed by UNICEF field officers will become
a publication for the advocacy of children rights in the country.
The report due to be presented by core members of the Nigerian Children's
Parliament to President Olusegun Obasanjo today highlights the challenges
facing children all over the world.
According to the report, 640 million children do not have adequate shelter; 500
million children have no access to sanitation; 400 million children do not have
access to safe water; 300 million children lack access to information; while
270 million children have no access to health care services.
Over 120 million children are shut out of primary schools, the majority of them
are girls and half the children in the developing world live without basic
goods and services added the report.
Affected by poverty, 180 million children work in the worst forms of child
labour, 1.2 million are trafficked annually and 2 million children mostly girls
are exploited in the sex industry.
Children, the report also noted are increasingly becoming the targets of armed
conflict. Nearly half of the 3.6 million people killed in conflict during the
1990's were children.
Also, deaths and illness of millions of adults due to AIDS is wreaking havoc on
the lives of children, a growing number of children themselves are dying of
AIDS, the single largest killer of people aged 15-49 world wide. In 2003, 2.9
million people died of AIDS, including almost half a million children under age
15.
UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy, accused many governments worldwide of
failing to live up to the 1989 convention on the Rights of the Child, the
worlds most widely adopted human rights treaty. The report points out that many
governments have failed to live up to the convention standard thus causing
permanent damage to children and in turn blocking progress towards human rights
and development.
"Too many governments are making informed, deliberate choices that actually
hurt childhood. 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." said
Bellamy.

   

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