HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

 Marking Universal Children’s Day, the United Nations on 20 November 2015 highlighted that the world remains a “deeply unfair” place for the poorest and most disadvantaged children despite major advances since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 26 years ago today.

Children look out a train window at a reception centre for refugees and migrants in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Photo: UNICEF/Ashley Gilbertson VII

“In just over a generation, the world has cut child death rates by half, put over 90 per cent of children in primary school, and increased by 2.6 billion the number of people with access to safe water,” said UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Anthony Lake in a press release.

“Yet children make up almost half of the world’s poor, nearly 250 million children live in conflict-torn countries, and over 200,000 have risked their lives this year seeking refuge in Europe,” he added.

“As long as this robust reception and screening capacity does not exist, the only ones who are in control of the situation are the smuggling networks whose unscrupulous activities have already cost the lives of nearly 3,500 people in the Mediterranean Sea this year,” the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a joint statement with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Human Wrongs Watch

20 November 2015 (UNICEF)* – Unfair is…not knowing where your family is going to sleep tonight. Unfair is…that nearly half the people living in extreme poverty are children. Join us and #FightUnfair – to make the world a fairer place for all children.