| Children have the right: | This is how it really is: |
| All children
have the right to live and State has to ensure the child's survival and development. (Article 6) |
But a great
part of the children in the world are on the brink of survival. Every day about 33.000
children die because of poverty and diseases. In the nineties about 1500 million children have been born. More than 100 million of these children will die before they reach the age of 5 (Source: UNICEF) |
| The child has
the right to a healthy life and satisfaction of basic needs as food, clean water, medical
aid, etc. (Article 24) |
But every
year about 6 million children die because of malnutrition, and another 4 million die from
diarrhea caused by contaminated drinking water. The most common children's diseases kill 2.4 million children each year, children who could have been saved by a simple vaccine. |
| All children
have the right to satisfactory living conditions. (Article 27) |
But many families around the world don’t have a home. About 100 million children live in the streets. |
| All children
have the right to live and State has to ensure the child's survival and development. (Article 26) |
But poverty is an ever growing problem for millions of children and their families. |
| To have a
name, a family and a country. (Article 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20, 21, 25) |
But all around the world children are driven out of their home country, by oppression, war or poverty, some of these children flee with their parents, some all by themselves |
| To go to
school (Article 28 and 29) |
But 143 million children don’t receive any kind of education. Most of these children are girls. In many countries girls don’t have the same rights as boys and are therefore not given the opportunity of going to school. |
| The right to
access information (Article 13 and 17) |
But Many children don’t have the opportunity of receiving information about the things that are relevant to them. Among the possibilities of receiving information that many children lack are TV, radio, books, newspapers and of course the internet. |
| The child has
the right to leisure, play and participation in cultural and artistic activities. (Article 31) |
But in many countries children must work from early in the morning till late at night, in order for their family to survive. |
| To say their
opinion (Article 12, 13 and 14) |
But all around the world children have the risk of being punished just for saying their honest opinion. |
| To have
friends and a private life (Article 15 and 16) |
But far from all children have the opportunity of making friends or performing other private tasks such as joining a club or an organization, or even writing a diary, without the interference of adults. |