Deprivation affects more than half of the world's children
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《英国医生杂志》
More than half of the children in the world live in extreme deprivation due to poverty, war, and HIV/AIDS, warns a report published this week by the Unicef, which argues that these problems are impeding the development of the countries affected. The report also provides a complete almanac of up to date statistical data on children.
Children experience poverty differently from adults, and the standard measures of income or consumption fail to capture the impact of poverty on children, the report argues. To gain a clearer picture, the report's authors, from Unicef, the London School of Economics, and the University of Bristol, analysed access to seven services and goods they considered essential to children.
They found that an estimated 1 billion children from the total of 2.2 billion in the world were living in poverty. One in three (640 million) children did not have adequate shelter, 500 million had no access to sanitation, and 400 million did not have access to safe water. Furthermore, 90 million children were severely deprived of food and 270 million had no access to healthcare services.
Statistics showed that poverty was not exclusive to developing countries. The proportion of children living in low income households had increased over the past decade in 11 of the 15 developed countries for which comparable data were available.
Extreme poverty was considered one of the central causes of conflict, along with poor governance. The report found that 55 of 59 armed conflicts that took place between 1990 and 2003 occured within, rather than between, countries. Children accounted for nearly half of the 3.6 million people killed in these conflicts. Conflict also had a catastrophic impact on overall health. In a typical five year war, the mortality of children under the age of 5 years increased by 13%.
The impact of HIV/AIDS on children was seen most dramatically in the number of orphans to AIDS—now totalling 15 million worldwide. In addition, the report found that AIDS was now the single largest killer of people aged 15-49 in the developing world.
Carol Bellamy, executive director of Unicef, warned that failure by governments to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child caused permanent damage to children.(Susan Mayor)
Children experience poverty differently from adults, and the standard measures of income or consumption fail to capture the impact of poverty on children, the report argues. To gain a clearer picture, the report's authors, from Unicef, the London School of Economics, and the University of Bristol, analysed access to seven services and goods they considered essential to children.
They found that an estimated 1 billion children from the total of 2.2 billion in the world were living in poverty. One in three (640 million) children did not have adequate shelter, 500 million had no access to sanitation, and 400 million did not have access to safe water. Furthermore, 90 million children were severely deprived of food and 270 million had no access to healthcare services.
Statistics showed that poverty was not exclusive to developing countries. The proportion of children living in low income households had increased over the past decade in 11 of the 15 developed countries for which comparable data were available.
Extreme poverty was considered one of the central causes of conflict, along with poor governance. The report found that 55 of 59 armed conflicts that took place between 1990 and 2003 occured within, rather than between, countries. Children accounted for nearly half of the 3.6 million people killed in these conflicts. Conflict also had a catastrophic impact on overall health. In a typical five year war, the mortality of children under the age of 5 years increased by 13%.
The impact of HIV/AIDS on children was seen most dramatically in the number of orphans to AIDS—now totalling 15 million worldwide. In addition, the report found that AIDS was now the single largest killer of people aged 15-49 in the developing world.
Carol Bellamy, executive director of Unicef, warned that failure by governments to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child caused permanent damage to children.(Susan Mayor)