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UNICEF Says China's Children Work Most Encouraging
United Nations Children's Fund ( UNICEF) released a report entitled "Every Last Child" on Monday at the Fifth East Asia and Pacific Ministerial Consultation on Shaping the Future for Children, saying that in the past decades the most encouraging results have occurred in China and Malaysia.
The report looks at the goals for children that the governments from east Asia and the Pacific agreed to achieve by the year 2000, pointing out that China has achieved four of the six major goals and Malaysia has met five of the six goals.
According to the report, the lives of millions of young people in this region have improved tremendously in the past decade -- more children are being educated, more are living to their fifth birthday and beyond, more mothers are surviving childbirth, more families have clean water to drink, and polio has been eradicated in all but a couple countries.
Five of the region's developing countries, namely China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, have managed to reduce their child mortality rate by one-third, to below 70 per one thousand live births, the report noted.
It noted that another area of great success was in education where, again, five countries (China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia and Thailand) were able to enroll at least 80 percent of children into schools.
China, Malaysia, Mongolia and Thailand also succeeded in cutting their adult illiteracy rates by half, it added.
But while more children have access to basic services, the report said, many others live dangerously close to the margins of survival.
Tens of thousands of children are being sold in some areas, and some 1.5 million of this region's young children still die each year to largely preventable causes, it said.
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