Advocating the need for registration of births, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Thursday said greater effort and innovation were needed to identify and address the gaps that prevent the most disadvantaged of the world’s 2.2 billion children from enjoying their rights.
The children’s agency, in a report ‘The State of the World Children-2014,’ released on Thursday, highlighted the importance of data in making progress for children and exposing the unequal access to services and protections that mars the lives of so many.
According to the report, 90 million children, who would have died before reaching the age of five had the child mortality rates been stuck at their 1990 level, have survived. This is because of progress in delivering immunisations, health, and water and sanitation services. Improvement in nutrition has led to a 37 per cent drop in stunting since 1990.
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Primary school enrolment has increased, even in the least developed countries, the report said. On an average, only 53 out of 100 children got school admission in 1990. The number had improved to 81 in 2011.Even so, the statistics in the report, titled “Every Child Counts: Revealing disparities, advancing children’s rights,” also bear witness to ongoing violations of children’s rights, said 6.6 million children under five years died in 2012, mostly from preventable causes, in violation of their fundamental right to survive and develop.
Fifteen per cent of the world’s children are put to work that compromises their right to protection from economic exploitation and infringes on their right to learn and play while 11 per cent of girls are married before they turn 15, jeopardising their right to health, education and protection.
Data also reveals gaps and inequities, showing that the gains of development are unevenly distributed. The world’s poorest children are nearly three (2.7) times less likely than the richest ones to have a skilled attendant at birth, leaving them and their mothers at increased risk of birth-related complications.
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In India, birth registration is only 24 per cent among the poorest while it was 72 per cent in the richer. Skilled birth attendants are available for delivery to only 24 per cent women while the percentage jumped to 85 per cent among the rich. Similarly, disparities are seen in access to information on HIV, early marriage, early births, early childhood care, including nutrition.
The report notes that “being counted makes children visible, and this act of recognition makes it possible to address their needs and advance their rights.” It adds that innovations in data collection, analysis and dissemination are making it possible to disaggregate data by such factors as location, wealth, sex, and ethnic or disability status, to include children who have been excluded or overlooked by broad averages.
The report urges increased investment in innovations that right the wrong of exclusion.
“Data do not, by themselves, change the world. They make change possible — by identifying needs, supporting advocacy, and gauging progress. What matters most is that decision-makers use the data to make positive change, and that the data are available for children and communities to use in holding duty-bearers to account,” the report said.