59 million children do not enjoy their right to study
Today, in the Universal Children's Day, UNICEF has presented a statistical report of progress and difficulties that have not yet been overcome. For each child, an opportunity. The promise of equity, is the theme of this study that has been published coinciding with the celebration of Universal Children's Day.
Among its conclusions, Unicef underlines that "the world continues to be a deeply unfair place for the poorest and most disadvantaged children", despite the progress made since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989, so that It is urgent to reduce the inequalities between poor households and rich families, and that children must invest in it because it implies multiple benefits for the whole society.
Advances and historical achievements in Universal Children's Day
Society has managed to reduce the inequalities that used to deprive millions of children of a decent life, adequate food, medical care and access to school and education. In the last decades, truly historic achievements have been achieved. Among the good news of Unicef's report on Universal Children's Day, the following stand out:
1. Infant mortality rate. Since 2000, the reduction of infant mortality has made it possible for nearly 48 million children to reach 5 years of age. The infant mortality rate has been reduced by 53 percent between 1990 and 2015, but UNICEF estimates that 5.9 million children will die from preventable causes this year before their fifth birthday, of which one in 12 are concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa.
2. Worldwide rate of stunting among children under five years of age. It has been reduced by 40 percent between 1990 and 2014, but a quarter of the smallest have this problem today, specifically 159 million, of which half live in Asia and one third in Africa. This probability doubles among the poorest households.
3. Schooling More than 90 percent of children of school age attend school today.
4. Poverty Today, approximately 721 million fewer people live in conditions of extreme poverty than in the early 1980s
Goals to be achieved for children in the world
1. Education Although more than 90% of children of school age go to school today, but 53 million still do not enjoy this right, which is fivefold among the poorest children.
2. Child census. Nearly 230 million children under the age of five lack a birth certificate (half of them in Asia) and one in four girls is currently married. Rates of early marriage vary greatly from one region to another and are higher in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, while women 20 to 24 years of age who belong to poor families are four times more likely to be spouses being younger than age than those of the most prosperous households.
3. PovertyThere are currently 721 million fewer people living in poverty than 30 years ago, but 47% of those who are now in this situation are children, and 2.6 million of children under 15 years of age and 3.9 million of 15-year-olds at 24 years old they were living with HIV in 2014.
4. Hunger and malnutrition. Every day, hunger causes the death of 8,000 children under the age of five; when the children of the poorest households in the world are almost twice as likely to die before the age of five as the children of the richest households.
5. Childhood obesity. It increased from 31 million in the year 2000 to 41 million in 2014.
6. Climate change. It threatens the benefits conquered in favor of children in recent decades, and the global warming of the planet is presented as a brake on their survival, nutrition, education and health.
7. Armed conflicts. Unicef estimates that the number of children living in countries at war is 250 million. The situation in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan has caused the flight of a large number of children and families causing the largest crisis of refugees and emigrants in Europe since the Second World War. It is estimated that 700 children have died in the Mediterranean in the first months of 2015.
Saving distances, inequality is a challenge also in Spain. Currently, 1 in 3 children are at risk of poverty and exclusion.
Marisol Nuevo Espín
