Child Rights and Child Poverty: Can the International Framework of Children's Rights Be Used to Improve Child Survival Rates?

摘要

It is estimated that over 10 million children in developing countries die each year, mainly from preventable causes. In approximately half of these deaths, malnutrition is a contributory cause [1,2]. However, the World Health Organization has argued that seven out of ten childhood deaths in such countries can be attributed to just five main causes, or their combination. In addition to malnutrition [3], these causes are pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles, and malaria. Around the world, three of every four children seen by health services are suffering from at least one of these conditions. Many of these deaths could be prevented using readily available medical technologies at comparatively little cost. In 1997, the United Nations Development Programme estimated that the cost of providing basic health and nutrition for every person on the planet was $13 billion per year for ten years [4]. To place this sum in perspective, in 2002, the United States population spent $30 billion on pizza and Europeans spent $12 billion on dog and cat food.