Childhood 'under threat'

Despite the near universal embrace of standards for protecting childhood, a new Unicef report shows that more than half the world's children are suffering extreme deprivations from poverty, war and HIV/AIDS, conditions that are effectively denying children a childhood and holding back the development of nations.

Unicef executive director Carol Bellamy said more than one billion children are denied the healthy and protected upbringing promised by 1989's Convention on the Rights of the Child - the world's most widely adopted human rights treaty.

The report stresses that the failure by governments to live up to the Convention's standards causes permanent damage to children and in turn blocks progress towards human rights and economic advancement.

"Too many governments are making informed, deliberate choices that actually hurt childhood," Ms Bellamy said. "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.

"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."

The report - entitled Childhood Under Threat - examines three of the most widespread and devastating factors threatening childhood today: HIV/AIDS, conflict, and poverty.

Working with researchers at the London School of Economics and Bristol University, Unicef concluded that more than half the children in the developing world are severely deprived of one or more of the goods and services essential to childhood:

¤ 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 (TV, radio or newspapers);

¤ 270 million children have no access to health care services;

¤ 140 million children, the majority of them girls, have never been to school;

¤ 90 million children are severely food deprived.

Even more disturbing is the fact that at least 700 million children suffer from at least two or more of the deprivations, the report states.

The report also makes clear that poverty is not exclusive to developing countries. In 11 of 15 industrialised nations for which comparable data are available, the proportion of children living in low-income households during the last decade has risen.

The State of the World's Children argues that bridging the gap between the ideal childhood and the reality experienced by half the world's children is a matter of choice. It requires:

¤ Adopting a human rights-based approach to social and economic development, with a special emphasis on reaching the most vulnerable children.

¤ The adoption of socially responsible policies in all spheres of development that keep children specifically in mind.

¤ Increased investment in children by donors and governments, with national budgets monitored and analysed from the perspective of their impact on children.

¤ The commitment of individuals, families, businesses and communities to get involved and stay engaged in bettering the lives of children and to use their resources to promote and protect children's rights.

"The approval of the Convention on the Rights of the Child was our global moment of clarity that human progress can only really happen when every child has a healthy and protected childhood," Ms Bellamy said. 

"But the quality of a child's life depends on decisions made every day in households, communities and in the halls of government. We must make those choices wisely, and with children's best interests in mind. If we fail to secure childhood, we will fail to reach our larger, global goals for human rights and economic development. As children go, so go nations. It's that simple."