The Plight of Asia's Children

Two decades after the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, guaranteeing children's rights, hundreds of millions of children are still suffering from poverty, abuse and disease.

According to the UN, more than 24-thousand children under the age of five die every day from preventable causes like pneumonia, malaria, measles and malnutrition.

Arun Kumar was born into deprivation in India

Arun now lives in a boys shelter in the poor neighbourhood of New Delhi. The shelter provides schooling and vocational training, as well as a place to sleep. He is one of the lucky ones.

Many runaways become street children, picking pockets, begging or scavenging to survive - others end up in the sex trade.

The UN children's agency issued a report on Thursday, on the challenges ahead and the accomplishments since the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989:

Nearly 200 million youngsters are chronically malnourished
More than 140 million are forced to work, and millions of girls and boys of all ages are subjected to sexual violence.

On the plus side, the number of deaths of children under five decreased from around 12.5 million in 1990 to an estimated 8.8 million in 2008 - a 28 percent decline.

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News & Politics

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• United Nations
• Asia
• Children
• New Delhi
• abuse
• poverty
• deprivation
• India
• News