Children

In East Asia and the Pacific, the number of children who face maltreatment is shockingly high.  Roughly 10% to 30% of the 580 million children –one quarter of the world’s children — in the East Asia and Pacific regions are victims of forced sex and other physical abuse according to a report by UNICEF.   The […]

Recent concerns have sparked as child marriages spike among Syrian refugees in Jordan.  Difficult conditions in Jordan have many parents pushing to have their daughters married at an earlier age.   The issue has created a concern among many international aid organizations that the rise in child marriage has been brought on as a sort of coping […]

On Monday, the Republic of South Sudan celebrated its first anniversary and independence from now-neighboring Sudan. Following decades of civil war, the nation separated from Sudan one year ago. Leaders of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda attended an official ceremony; meanwhile, thousands of people danced and waved flags during official celebrations of the newly formed nation in the capital city […]

Children of the Earth summit — 1992 and 2012 As young people weigh in with their impressions of the ongoing Rio+20 conference, this documentary series, Zero Ten Twenty, looks back on the lives of children born in 1992–the year of the groundbreaking Earth Summit. Working to include women in development recipe The United Nations is hosting […]

I am pleased to announce that this week in Washington, D.C., Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton officially released the 12th annual Trafficking in Person’s (TIP) report.  The report was openly released on June 19th in the Benjamin Franklin Room at the Department of State.  The event was open by invite to key government officials, leading anti-trafficking leaders and […]

UNICEF has released their 2011 Annual Report.  The report gives a global overview of the previous year’s achievements and highlights a number of various international, regional, and national collaborations. The report highlights UNICEF’s contributions to achieving the 2015 Millennium Development Goals by providing increased assistance to children in need around the globe. The report highlights […]

I came across this quote this morning, and it summed up everything one should say on a day like Father’s Day. A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty (Author Unknown). Today, many fathers awoke to smiling children excited to give them special gifts–many handcrafted with […]

Today, many children across the globe are beginning to look forward to a break from school for summer vacations.  However, for millions of children across the globe, there is no “break” and there is no classroom because they are forced to into child labor, often being denied an education all together.  The term “child labor” […]

As mentioned in the post, “UN Campaign Seeks to Give all Children a Shot at Life,” one in five children does not have access to vaccines that prevent deadly diseases, like measles, pneumonia, or diarrhea.  Nonetheless, some 2.5 million children under the age of 5 die every year as the result of preventable infectious disease, mostly due […]

As I wrote in the recent post, The Joy and Burden of Motherhood, “The greatest joy of motherhood is seen as the sheer gift of bringing a life into this world and helping to shape them from the moment of birth and then to watch them grow into a happy, productive and successful member of […]

Girl Up tour kicks off at Atlanta girls’ school Hundreds of children gathered April 30 at the Atlanta Girls’ School to help launch the Unite for Girls Tour of the Girl Up campaign, the program of the United Nations Foundation that aims to empower American girls to help improve the lives of girls in the […]

Today, May 15 is International Day of Families.  The day highlights the importance families play in our global world.  The Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1993 with resolution A/RES/47/237 and reflects the importance the international community attaches to families.  The International Day provides an opportunity to promote awareness of issues relating to […]