Remembering our innocent children

This article was written in the afternoon of December 28th, the day set aside to remember the innocent children ordered slaughtered by King Herod who feared the power of the newly-born Messiah. We do not know exactly how many children perished but the world remembers how the innocent children died because of a king’s obsession as well as abuse of power.

King Herod is long gone but throughout time and up to the present, countless rulers, in politics and in business, all throughout the world have followed his footsteps: Many still cling on to power, many still resort to abuse and corruption. Many still focus merely, solely on their own private or family agenda. Everyone else’s welfare is never part of their myopic selfish vision. As a result, inequality, poverty, and injustice continue to reign until now.

Sadly, as a result of continuing greed and inequality, millions of children get slaughtered by poverty, malnutrition, war and conflict, and hazardous labor, among others.

According to the 2010 UNICEF Special Edition of the State of the World Children (SOWC), one billion children are deprived of one or more services essential to survival and development. There are 148 million under-fives in developing regions who are underweight for their age. About 101 million children are not attending primary school, with more girls than boys missing out on their education. An estimated 22 million infants are not protected from diseases by routine immunization.

About 8.8 million children worldwide died before their fifth birthday in 2008. There are still 4 million newborns all over the world who are dying in the first month of their precious, fragile life.

There are 2 million children under 15 worldwide who are living with HIV. Not only children but mothers as well, an estimated 500,000 women die each year from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.

Children born to poverty are the hardest hit in this cruel, unequal world.

To continue with the statistics provided by the 2010 UNICEF Special Edition, child mortality among the poor is at least 1.9 times higher than among the rich in more than half of 90 countries with sufficient data to make an assessment. Underweight prevalence is more than twice as likely for under-fives who are poor than for those who are rich in developing countries. Children in urban households have more access to piped drinking water connections as well as improved sanitation facilities than children in rural households.

Not only are the children experiencing poverty based on class and location. The girls among the children are the hardest hit by this world’s inequality and gender discrimination.

According to the same 2010 UNICEF report, HIV prevalence is 3 times higher among young women in Eastern and Southern Africa. In the least developed countries, literacy among young men is 1.2 times higher than those of young women. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the net attendance for boys in secondary education is 6 percentage points lower than for girls. Children are forced to marry early with more child marriages taking place among the young women in rural areas.

An estimated 55% of births in the developing world annually are unregistered, disadvantaging the poor children even more in terms of identity, nationality, and access to social services later on in life.

An earlier 2006 UNICEF SOWC report presented ILO estimates of about 246 million children between 5 and 17 engaged in child labor, with nearly 70 percent or 171 million children working in hazardous situations or conditions, such as in mines, with chemicals and pesticides in agriculture or with dangerous machinery. Some 73 million of them were reported to be less than 10 years old. The same report estimated that trafficking affects about 1.2 million children each year.

If life is very difficult for children, how much more difficult is it for children born in situations of war and conflict?

Every December 28th should be marked as the day to remind everyone that despite time, beyond King Herod’s cruel reign, millions of children continue to die and be deprived of their rights to life and to a protective environment because the world has allowed clones of King Herod and his oppressive system to persist until now. May December 28 each year remind everyone to do their responsible share in making this world a better place for all, especially for our innocent children.

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