International Children's Day

Save the Children Canada has been working to improve the quality of childrens' lives by campaigning for their rights for over 90 years. Bravo!

UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) is the world leader in 156 countries advocating and working to save, protect and enhance the lives of girls and boys.

The Canadian House of Commons resolved to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. It improved somewhat up until the mid 1990's and then things took a turn for the worse. All progress made was lost and the rate of child poverty rose again - second only to the rate of child poverty in the United States. And we aren't talking about poor nations either; this data was compiled over the course of 10 years, from 14 industrialized countries, between the mid 1990's and the mid 2000's.

So where did we go wrong? What are the main reasons for the increase? Can we fix this?

From social psychologists, employment statistics, world economic factors, immigrant studies and other experts in the field - these appear to be the top reasons (although I cannot rank them, since there are differences of opinion amongst these sources and in different regions). The most common reasons, across the board, appear to be:

Low income, lower incomes paid to immigrant workers, refugees and immigrants with credentials not recognized here, joblessness rates, unequal pay for equal work, drug and alcohol abuse, violence/abuse within families (including emotional abuse and neglect), customs that are oppressive (especially to females), unplanned pregnancies, the rise in single-parent families, access to affordable child care (except in the province of Quebec), child-support payment issues and divorce.

Some too, would argue that employers take advantage of very highly qualified people who immigrate to Canada by paying them less. Women's rights activists contend that women (on average) in North America still earn approximately one third less than their male counterparts. Sadly, at the rate it is going, it will take until the year 2050 for this wage gap to finally close between men and women. Employers need to look at this closely - it's one of the biggest reasons for the increased rate in child poverty that I have found.

According to UN statistics, an alarming number of girls are kept from school to work and raise children - sometimes to support their families; sometimes to adhere to traditions of early marriage. In South Africa, many schools are not child or girl friendly. Most schools do not have separate bathrooms for girls. Often schools are situated far from village homes, thereby exposing girls to danger merely by walking to and from school every day.

What shocked me the most? A 2006 Report of the Public Hearing on the Right to Basic Education revealed that girls risked being sexually harassed and exploited by teachers and other students. Erika George, counsel to the Academic Freedom Program at Human Rights Watch conceded, "Girls are learning that sexual violence and abuse are an inescapable part of going to school every day - so they don't go."