world

The situation of children is getting worse in many countries and regions of the world with each passing day.

Disputes and armed conflicts are the main causes that inflict untold misfortunes and suffering on the children.

A UNICEF high-ranking official said that one in six children in the world is now living in the disputed areas and most of them have lost their lodgings. This is a situation unprecedented in the history of UNICEF and the worst era for children, he said, expressing his concern.

In the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo the public health system is on the verge of bankruptcy due to armed conflicts and children fail to have vaccinations. In Ethiopia more than 7.2 million children of school age cannot attend school due to disputes and social instability.

Children are even used as human shields by the anti-government forces and most of them are killed or crippled.

The situation in the Gaza Strip of Palestine is worse.

A UNICEF spokesman recently said that 26 000 children are suffering malnutrition in the Gaza Strip. Even at this moment, many children in the area are suffering from hunger and various kinds of infectious diseases and are struck with terror under the threat of death.

The reckless bombing by Israel destroyed many schools and educational facilities in Gaza, making 85% of them unusable. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs expressed disappointment, saying that over 700 000 children cannot receive education in the Gaza Strip.

It is also a problem that children are subjected to all sorts of crimes and maltreatment.

In the US it has become a commonplace that children fall victim to gun-related crimes. In the country, a seven-year-old child fired a pistol to kill a three-year-old and a five-year-old shot dead his nine-month-old brother who was sleeping in a cradle, and such surprising incidents occur one after another. In 2021 alone, 4 752 children were killed by gun crimes in the country.

Exploitation of immigrant child labour is also rampant. In 2024, a new bill on cancelling the protection of child workers was proposed or adopted in 11 states of the US.

It has become a social trend in Japan to maltreat children regarding them as a nuisance. Child abuses have reached hundreds of thousands of cases every year and even parents are killing or abandoning their children without hesitation regarding their existence as troublesome and a burden. Recently, the parents who had abused and killed their only two-year-old daughter were arrested in Wakayama Prefecture. Reportedly, they did not give food to their young daughter, inflicted violence on her and did not allow her to receive medical treatment and so she died of traumatic shock caused by pronephros bruise.

Reportedly, human trafficking of children is rife across the world and about 28 percent of the victims of human trafficking in the world are children.

Due to the food crisis sweeping the world, 783 million people are in the grip of famine and 150 million children suffer developmental disorders caused by malnutrition.

Children are also the main victims of measles, hand-foot-mouth disease, malaria and other infectious diseases of various kinds that are spreading in different countries.

To solve the issue of child protection as soon as possible is an urgent task facing mankind.