Upset with the Opulence of the Rich? But the World’s Children Are Paying the Bill — Global Issues

• by Baher Kamal (Madrid)
• Monday, May 30, 2022
• Joint press service

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Overconsumption in the world’s richest countries is destroying children’s environment globally, explained UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) in its report Innocenti Report Card 17: Place and Space.

“The world’s wealthiest countries are providing healthier environments for the children within their borders, but disproportionately contributing to the destruction of the global environment.”

In fact, if everyone in the world consumed resources at the rate that everyone does in Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD (38 countries) and the European Union (EU) States (27), equivalent to 3.3 Earths would be needed to keep up with consumption.

But if everyone were to consume resources at the rate that people in Canada, Luxembourg and the United States do, then at least five Earths would be needed.

UNICEF compares both the OECD and EU countries’ efforts in providing healthy environments for children.

For this purpose, it has indicators such as exposure to harmful pollutants including toxic air, pesticides, humidity and lead; access to light, green space and safe roads; and countries’ contributions to the climate crisis, resource consumption and e-waste dumping.

Destruction of children’s environment.. And life

“Not only are the majority of rich countries failing to provide healthy environments for children within their borders, they are also contributing to the destruction of children’s environments in other parts of the world.” speak Gunilla Olsson, Director of UNICEF’s Office of Research – Innocenti.

“A buildup of waste, harmful pollutants and depleted natural resources is affecting the physical and mental health of our children and threatening the sustainability of our planet.

Learn more, please

The Innocenti . Report include other important findings. See some of them:

• More than 20 million children have elevated blood lead levels. Lead is one of the most dangerous environmental toxins.
• Finland, Iceland and Norway are in the top third place for providing a healthy environment for their children but are in the bottom third place in the world overall, with emissions rates, e-waste and high consumption.
• In Iceland, Latvia, Portugal and the United Kingdom, 1 in 5 children is exposed to dampness and mold at home; while in Cyprus, Hungary and Turkey, 1 in 4 children is exposed.
• Many children are breathing toxic air both outside and inside their homes. Mexico had the highest number of years of healthy life lost to air pollution at 3.7 years per thousand children, while Finland and Japan had the lowest at 0.2 years.
• In Belgium, the Czech Republic, Israel, the Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland, more than 1 in 12 children is exposed to high pesticide contamination.
• Pesticide pollution has been linked to cancer, including childhood leukemia, and can harm children’s nervous, cardiovascular, digestive, reproductive, endocrine, blood, and immune systems.

But there’s so much more…

Sadly, all of the above is not the only cause of damage to children’s present and future. For example:

• Shocking levels of exploitative infant formula marketing. The world’s leading health agency (WHO) has revealed the “… insidious, exploitative, aggressive, misleading and pervasive” marketing tactics used by infant formula businesses. used by children for the sole purpose of increasing, even more, their already high profits.
• Serious waste: UNICEF warns that the number of children suffering from severe malnutrition is increasing and worsening. Its report Severe wear and tear: An overlooked child survival emergency shows that despite increasing rates of severe childhood wasting and rising costs of life-saving treatment, global financing to save the lives of children with emaciation is also at stake.
• Serious waste – Children who are too thin for their height, leading to a weakened immune system – is the most immediate, visible and life-threatening form of malnutrition. Worldwide, at least 13.6 million children under 5 years of age suffer from severe cachexia, leading to one in five deaths in this age group.
• Migrant children: Around the world, immigrant children are facing alarming levels of xenophobia, the socioeconomic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, and limited access to essential services. processing, follow to UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
• Children in War: Nearly 90% of people in Syria Live in poverty. More than 6.5 million children are in urgent need of assistance – the largest number of Syrian children in need since the conflict began. There, only one in four young children get the diet they need to grow up healthy. In 2021 alone, the price of the average food basket has nearly doubled. In Yemen45% of children are stunted and over 86% are anemic; In other Middle Eastern countries, such as Lebanon, 94% of young children do not receive the nutrition they need, while more than 40% of women and children under the age of 5 are anemic;
• Child soldier: Thousands of children are recruited and used in armed conflicts around the world. Between 2005 and 2020, more than 93,000 children were identified as being recruited and used by conflicting parties, although the actual number is believed to be much higher. that term. The warring parties not only used children as warriors, but also as scouts, cooks, porters, guards, messengers and more. Many girls, especially girls, are also subjected to gender-based violence.
• Child forced labor: There are more than 160 million children in forced labor. They are children washing clothes in the river, begging on the street, street vendors, walking for kilometers in search of water and firewood, their little hands competing with old, experienced hands. experiences to pick coffee or tea, or as child soldiers are familiar sights in Africa and Asia, explain IPS journalist Joyce Chimbi.

Resources are scarce

There are too many other crimes being committed against children in the world.

One of them is truly amazing: the organization itself: UNICEF, founded 75 years ago to assist in emergencies of European children who became victims of the Second World War due to Europe launched, currently lacks the desperately needed funding to save the students’ lives. of millions of children around the world.

Not only, a good portion of these scarce resources are rightfully devoted to saving the children of another European war.

© Inter Press Service (2022) – All rights reservedOrigin: Inter Press Service