Debt and the Effect on Children
Author and Page information
This print version has been auto-generated from http://www.globalissues.org/article/33/debt-and-the-effect-on-children
The Progress of Nations, 19991 report by UNICEF, suggests that debt is killing children2.
It is pointed out that as countries are diverting resources away from social provisions to repay debt, those most affected are the poor, especially women and children.
The State of the World's Children 20003 report, also by UNICEF, points out that in 1960 the income gap between the richest one-fifth of the world's population and the poorest was 30-1. In 1997 it was 74-1.
According to UNICEF's Progress of Nations 2000 report, 30,000 children die each day.4 Yet, they "die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death." That is just under 11 million children each year dying from poverty.
UNICEF defines these as children under the age of 5. The numbers would be even higher if they considered children to be those under the age of say 6, or 7, for example.
Where next?
Related articles
- Causes of the Debt Crisis
- The Scale of the Debt Crisis
- The Heavily In-debt Poor Countries Initiative is Not Working
- Debt Cancellation and Public Pressure
- Debt and the Global Economic Crisis of 1997/98/99
- Debt and the Effect on Children
- Debt and the Environment
- G8 Summits: Empty promises each year
- Third World Debt and Disaster Recovery
- Poverty Links for More Information
Online Sources:
(Note that listed here are only those hyperlinks to other articles from other web sites or elsewhere on this web site. Other sources such as journal, books and magazines, are mentioned above in the original text. Please also note that links to external sites are beyond my control. They might become unavailable temporarily or permanently since you read this, depending on the policies of those sites, which I cannot unfortunately do anything about.)
- http://www.unicef.org/pon99/
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_400000/400877.stm
- http://www.unicef.org/sowc00/
- http://www.unicef.org/pon00/immu1.htm
Author and Page Information
- Created: Monday, July 20, 1998
- Last Updated: Tuesday, July 04, 2000