The world is failing children says Unicef

LONDON - Political leaders the world over are failing the most vulnerable of their people - children, the United Nations child rights organisation Unicef said.

Although child mortality rates had fallen by a fifth in the past decade, they remain far too high due to a combination of grinding poverty, the HIV/Aids pandemic and widespread civil wars - situations either caused or neglected by national leaders.

"It is the failure of leadership. It has become clearer year after year ... that it is the failure not just in the poorest countries but some of the richest countries too," Unicef head Carol Bellamy said.

"Whether it is ... development assistance or debt or aid, these are also challenges for the developed world," she said.

In its annual State of the World's Children report published yesterday, Unicef said more than half of the world's two billion children were being denied access to one or more basic services. Globally, 640 million children had no adequate shelter, 500 million had no sanitation, 400 million had no access to safe water, 270 million had no access to health care services, 140 million had never been to school and 90 million were starving.

"To not understand the underlying causes of why children die today or why childhood is robbed from children today would be, in my view, a moral failure," Bellamy said.

"It is not a matter of saying, 'If only we knew what to do'. We know what to do. The challenge is to do it."

Unicef - which has been accused by some of focusing on children's rights rather than than simply their survival - has published tables listing every country in the world and their statistics on child mortality, poverty, education, HIV/Aids, health and nutrition. (See www.unicef.org.)

On under-five child mortality, for example, Sierra Leone came out as the worst in the world with 284 deaths per 1000, while Sweden and Singapore were the best at just three.

"We are providing the data that ought to be used by everyone possible in advocating that there ought to be more political leadership," Bellamy said.

HOW KIDS ARE BEING ROBBED OF THEIR CHILDHOOD

* 2.2 million children die each year through lack of routine immunisation.

* 1.4 million children die each year through lack of access to safe water or sanitation.

* 1.2 million children are trafficked each year.

* 1.6 million children have been killed in wars since 1990.

* 2 million children have been drawn into sex industry.fls

* 10.6 million children under five died last year.

* 2.1 million children under 14 are infected with HIV/Aids.

* 15 million children have been orphaned by HIV/Aids.

* The estimated annual cost of meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015: US$40-70 billion.

* World military spending last year: US$956 billion.

- REUTERS