When the 193-member General Assembly, the U.N.’s highest policy-making body, declared water and sanitation a basic human right back in July 2010, the adoption of that divisive resolution was hailed by many as a “historic” achievement.

But as the international community commemorated the second anniversary of that resolution last week, there was hardly any political rejoicing either inside or outside the United Nations.

“This human right is yet to be fully implemented,” complained a coalition of 15 international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), whose members describe themselves as “water justice activists”.

Demanding concrete action by individual governments, the coalition said, “As members of the global water justice movement, we are deeply concerned to see little progress being made towards the full implementation of this right.”

In a letter sent to member states, the 15 organizations said that as “governments aggressively pursue false solutions to the environmental and economic crises, the situation will only deepen the ...

The global economic crisis is exacerbating an existing human crisis. Prior to 2008, there were widespread inequalities: lavish lifestyles for some, while half of the world’s children were living on less than $2 per day, suffering from malnutrition and limited access to health, education, drinking water, and adequate housing. As the crisis unfolded, millions confronted deteriorating living conditions.

Today, while global attention focuses on Europe’s woes, the economic crisis continues to inflict devastating social consequences worldwide. In a new book from UNICEF’s Division of Policy and Practice, A Recovery for All: Rethinking Socioeconomic Policies for Children and Poor Households, analysis of the latest international data shows that unaffordable food, pervasive unemployment, and dwindling social support threaten much of the world’s population.

For starters, after two major international food-price spikes in 2007-2008 and 2010-2011, people in nearly 60 developing countries are paying 80% more, on average, for local foodstuffs in 2012 than they did before the crisis. As a result, poor families’ food security is threatened, as they are forced to reduce the quality or quantity of their food.

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As debates rage on austerity measures and social spending cuts, a new report reveals the extent of child poverty and child deprivation in the world’s advanced economies. Some 13 million children in the European Union (plus Norway and Iceland) lack basic items necessary for their development. Meanwhile, 30 million children – across 35 countries with developed economies – live in poverty.

Report Card 10, from UNICEF’s Office of Research, looks at child poverty and child deprivation across the industrialized world, comparing and ranking countries’ performance. This international comparison, says the Report, proves that child poverty in these countries is not inevitable, but policy susceptible - and that some countries are doing much better than others at protecting their most vulnerable children. 

“The data reinforces that far too many children continue to go without the basics in countries that have the means to provide,” said Gordon Alexander, Director of UNICEF's Office of Research. “The report also shows that some countries performed well – when looking at what is largely pre crisis data – due to the social protection systems that were in place. The risk is that in the current crisis we won’t see the consequences of poor decisions until much later.”

Report Card 10 examines child poverty and child deprivation in two entirely different ways. By examining these two different types of child poverty, Report Card 10 brings together the very latest available data on child poverty and child deprivation across all of the world’s advanced industrial economies.

The first measure is a Child Deprivation Index, taken from data European Union’s Statistics on Income and Living Conditions from ...

It happens every day across the globe, with many of its young victims lured by false promises into the world's third most profitable criminal activity. This is human trafficking.

While human rights groups say it's hard to pinpoint an exact statistic, the International Labor Organization has estimated that around 2.4 million people worldwide have become trafficking victims. In Latin America and the Caribbean alone, more than 550,000 children have been trafficked.

According to Tamar Hahn, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) communications specialist for Latin America and the Caribbean, the highest rate of trafficked children into the U.S. comes from Latin America, with more than 17,000 children trafficked into the U.S. in 2010.

Hahn told IPS that poverty, violence and lack of education are the main issues leading young people to fall into trafficking.

"While it is hard to quickly change these underlying causes of trafficking or exploitation, UNICEF is trying to install more knowledge and awareness around the issue," she said. "Young people are looking for opportunities overseas for study or work and this is how (others) can exploit them."

"This is one of the most pressing issues drawing young people in and we need to educate them to have a better understanding of situations to avoid and how to prevent themselves from being exposed."

Hahn said UNICEF has linked trafficking around the world with migration, especially in Latin America, from where there is a strong flow into the U.S.

However, migration can be internal as well, Hahn said. "This could happen when people migrate from rural to urban areas. There have been times when some children get stuck in Mexico when they travel from Central America to the U.S."

Renewing efforts

In ...

When you call yourself a "historian," you create the implication that you can speak authoritatively about, well, history. But last Friday, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich defied that common sense.

Speaking at one of America's top institutions of learning, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Gingrich, who had earlier in the week bragged about being paid millions to be a "historian" for mortgage behemoth Freddie Mac, boldly declared that laws preventing child labor are "truly stupid."

In outlining a plan to fire janitorial staffs in public schools across the county and then hire poor children to clean the schools, Gingrich claimed that laws preventing poor kids from going to work "before you're 14, 16" are actually obstacles standing in the way of rescuing children who are "in a school that's failing with a teacher that's failing."

What "professor" Gingrich has overlooked is that there are historical reasons why America has child labor laws.

Most civilized countries have enacted child labor laws because history has proven that putting children into work situations at a very early age tends to exploit them, subject them to abuse, and endanger their education, rather than enhance it.

But you don't even need to delve deeply into a history lesson to find examples of how subjecting children to spending long hours of manual labor might not be the best way to improve their academic attainment. All you have to do is ...

On July 22, 2011 the newly appointed Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, a Harvard-trained professor of economics, announced his 49-member cabinet. There are only two women in it: one minister and one vice minister. Yet, Somali women and children are the primary victims of ongoing conflict and deepening drought and famine in Somalia. According to UNICEF, a child dies every six minutes in the areas hard hit by drought in the Horn of Africa. In addition, all international studies show that women and children are the most vulnerable groups in societies under stress.

But with continued, systemic UN and Western support, the Somali Transitional Federal Government continues to exclude women from all decision-making arenas. Apart from the formality of mentioning women and children as footnotes in UN and government speeches, Somalia is pursuing business as usual.

The political sidelining of women in Somalia goes against both national and international conventions. Resolution 1325 adopted in 2000, for instance, calls on all UN agencies and all UN member states to support and promote the full and effective participations of women at all stages of peace processes and for ending gender-based violence against women and girls living in armed conflict zones. Over a decade after adopting resolution 1325, and after 20 years of civil war, Somalia does not accede to the basic tenants of this UN convention.

At a national level, meanwhile, Article 29 of the Somali transitional charter guarantees a 12 percent quota for women in parliament. But of the current 550 transitional federal parliamentarians only 38 are women. In addition, ...