International Child Day - 20 November

Child Protection, the MDGs and the Millennium Declaration

Child protection issues intersect with every one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)– from poverty reduction to getting children into school, from eliminating gender inequality to reducing child mortality.

Most of the MDGs simply cannot be achieved if failures to protect children are not addressed.Child labour squanders a nation’s human capital and conflicts with eradicating extreme poverty (MDG 1); armed conflict disrupts efforts to achieve universal primary education (MDG 2); child marriage leads to the removal of girls from school and thus prevents gender equality (MDG 3); children separated from their mothers, particularly if they remain in institutional settings, are at greater risk of early death, which hinders efforts to reduce child mortality (MDG 4); female genital mutilation/cutting undermines efforts to improve maternal health (MDG 5); and sexual exploitation and abuse hamper efforts to combat HIV infection (MDG 6). In addition, environmental disasters make children vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, hence the need for environmental sustainability (MDG 7).

Overall, protecting children requires close cooperation between different partners, which consolidates the need for a global partnership for development (MDG 8).

Arabic Forum