Ahmed, 7, the son of an FSA fighter (Free Syrian Army), mans a barricade in Aleppo. Photo by Sebastiano Tomada Piccolomini

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More on Syria and on child soldiers. More iconic images.

However, I make an exception today because of this fine infographic, sent to me by Sarah Fudin of the University of Southern California:

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More on children’s rights here.

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In many countries, it’s customary for girls to marry at a very young age, voluntarily or not. This practice is detrimental to the human rights of women, as I argued before.

In the developing world, more than one third of women aged 20 to 24 report that they were married or in a union by the age of 18. (source)

This practice is often legally entrenched:

In 50 countries, the minimum legal age of marriage is lower for females. (source)

However, it seems that the law can also work the other way:

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Or perhaps the causation goes the other way: countries where customs are against early marriage also adopt laws stipulating a high minimum marriage age. In general, we shouldn’t be too optimistic about the power of legislation.

More on child marriage here. More human rights facts here.

• Children are relatively easy to abduct, subjugate, and manipulate. They are more impressionable and vulnerable to indoctrination, and their moral development is incomplete and malleable.
• They are also seen as more loyal and less threatening to adult leadership.
• Children, despite their a priori disadvantages in terms of fighting skills, may have a particular functional value. They may be suitable for menial logistical support of the armed group, or they may even have certain tactical advantages: they can slip through enemy lines unnoticed, making them effective spies and bomb carriers. Also, the proliferation of inexpensive, lightweight weapons has made it easier to use children as soldiers. These small arms are easy to transport and use with little training.
• Rebel groups also make simple cost-benefit analysis: children require less food and no payment. Punishment of children is also less costly. Child soldiers are financially attractive. Rebel groups may be extremely resource-constrained and forced to recruit children.
• The use of child soldiers can present a moral dilemma to enemies: should they kill children?
• Rebel groups may recruit children in order to signal seriousness, commitment and ruthlessness, and thereby instill fear in the enemy.

How are child soldiers recruited? Patterns of recruitment of children vary according to the context. It’s usually a mix of punishment, promises of rewards and indoctrination.

• The recruitment of children is facilitated when they are forced to participate in an assassination (perhaps of one of their relatives, parents or friends). The objective is to break their will. The forced killing of relatives also destroys a child’s outside options: if the child were to flee, it has no place to go to, or the community may reject the child because of what it did.
• Armed forces will also destroy other outside options for children: schools, villages, farms etc.
• Armed forces abuse children’s feelings of desperation and traumas resulting from previous situations of extreme violence.
• Armed forces also abuse certain motivations of children: children may join armed forces because of the desire to take control of events, or because of the protection offered by being at the shooting end of a gun.

More on child soldiers here and here.

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Thanks to scaled up support for simple, relatively inexpensive solutions like anti-malaria mosquito nets, measles vaccinations and vitamin supplements, the number of children dying before their fifth birthdays each year has been cut to the lowest level ever on record, 8.8 million, according to a report released today by Unicef. “This enormous global progress – 10,000 fewer children dying each day than in 1990 – is something to celebrate and carry forward,” said ONE President and CEO David Lane. (source, source)

However, there are still 8.8 million under-fives dying each year of treatable diseases, 40% of them in just three countries: India, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. That’s unimaginable and a lot more work needs to be done.

Of these 8.8 million, 1.5 million children per year die of diarrhea, an easily preventable disease.

Inexpensive and effective treatments for diarrhea exist, but in developing countries only 39 percent of children with diarrhea receive the recommended treatment. Ann Veneman (source)

Read more on infant mortality rates. Or browse some more statistics on this topic.

Although there has been some progress in the proportions of children of primary school age actually receiving and completing primary education, some 101 million children worldwide are still denied this right. Not surprisingly, most of these children live in developing countries. See this graph (expressed in millions):

More Than 100 Million Children of Primary School Age Are Out of School

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And here‘s a map on the problem of gender inequality in primary education.

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From Amnesty International:

Approximately 250,000 children under the age of 18 are thought to be fighting in conflicts around the world, and hundreds of thousands more are members of armed forces who could be sent into combat at any time. Although most child soldiers are between 15 and 18 years old, significant recruitment starts at the age of 10 and the use of even younger children has been recorded.

Around the world, children are singled out for recruitment by both armed forces and armed opposition groups, and exploited as combatants. Easily manipulated, children are sometimes coerced to commit grave atrocities, including rape and murder of civilians using assault rifles such as AK-47s and G4s. Some are forced to injure or kill members of their own families or other child soldiers. Others serve as porters, cooks, guards, messengers, spies, and sex slaves.

More on the problem of child soldiers here. Here is a map pinpointing the places in the world where children are used as soldiers. And here and here are adverts that are part of a campaign against child soldiers. Something more general on children’s rights is here.

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How can we expect Africa to escape from poverty if this doesn’t change? But of course, this is a vicious circle: the main reason for children not going to school is precisely poverty:

• the poverty of the families in those countries, often making it impossible for them to send their children to school,
• and the poverty of the state as the authority responsible for providing education.

I’ve written here about the catch 22 of poverty and education. This is another example of the interdependence of human rights (the right to education and the right to the absence of poverty).

One way out of the vicious circle is to break it from the outside: international development aid.

Take a look here for the general picture of human rights in Africa.

However, the latest measurements show that this target is out of reach; at least, the current rates of decline aren’t enough to reach the goal by 2015:

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More on child mortality. More on children’s rights.

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Save the Children has created a Child Development Index (CDI), a simple but convincing combination of three basic indicators measuring child welfare and wellbeing:

• Mortality rates for children under 5
• Rates of children under 5 who are underweight
• And the rates of children enrolled or not enrolled in primary school.

This index goes back in time so it provides an indication of which countries are doing better or worse. Globally, the trend is positive. Unsurprisingly, Africa isn’t doing very well, although some African countries are progressing. The entire data set is here (excel-file).

Interestingly, there are countries, such as India, with high rates of GDP growth but relatively low levels of child wellbeing. This means that specific policies and measures aimed at child wellbeing are necessary (investment in education and health etc.). One cannot just rely on growth and hope that all else follows.

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Of course, there are other and more complex indicators of child wellbeing. Unicef has one. And there’s this one from the Annie E. Casey Foundation regarding the situation in the different states of the U.S. (needless to say, the U.S. isn’t one of the worst countries for child wellbeing):

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Child mortality, child undernutrition and non-attendance at school are gross violations of children’s basic human rights, and are a scandalous waste of human potential. Children will suffer their entire lives from the rights violations they suffer early on.

More on children’s rights.

This is a violation of the rights of children, because in many cases their marriage means that they have to give up their education. They may also suffer from the health consequences of premature pregnancy. When a child marries an adult – in practice, it is almost always a young girl marrying an adult man – there’s also the likelihood of marital rape, slavery or bonded labor and the lack of social contact with peers.

Article 23 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:

The right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and to found a family shall be recognized. No marriage shall be entered into without the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

The practice has gradually diminished over the years, but is still widespread in many parts of the world. 36 per cent of women aged 20-24 were married or in union before they reached 18 years of age.

Here are some graphs:

Percentage of women aged 20-24 who were married or in union before age 18 (1987-2006):

More than 60% of women were married before they reached the age of 18 in five countries of Sub-Saharan Africa and in Bangladesh.

Percentage of women aged 20-24 who were married or in union before age 18, by wealth index quintile (1987-2006):

Child marriage is more likely in poor families.

Number of women aged 20-24 who were married or in union before age 18, by region (2006):

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More on children’s rights.

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The practice of locking children in prisons, especially adult prisons, has devastating effects on them. They mix with criminal adults and they tend to follow inappropriate role models. It just makes them worse people.

Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:

Juvenile offenders shall be segregated from adults and be accorded treatment appropriate to their age and legal status. (source)

But even putting them in special child detention centers or so-called “corrective facilities” makes it difficult for these children to get a proper education, to learn appropriate social skills and to receive the special kind of support that only a family can provide. Of course, their families are often part of the problem. Prison guards are no teachers, no matter how well they try (and in many countries, they don’t). Some of these children undoubtedly have to be kept off the streets, but other, non-custodial options must be possible.

However, the fact is that many children are in prison, not because they have committed a crime, but because their parents are in prison (maybe the children were born in prison) or because their parents entered the country illegally. Maybe they did commit some kind of crime, but not one severe enough to have them locked up. They are locked up because their government didn’t provide the funds necessary for adequate guidance and support.

Some statistics on national prison systems. More on children’s rights.

Sir Roger Moore

The saddest sight these days is the image of hundreds of thousands of children kidnapped and lured into being child soldiers from the age of eight. Sir Roger Moore

According to The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers

“a child soldier any person under the age of 18 who is a member of or attached to government armed forces or any other regular or irregular armed force or armed political group, whether or not an armed conflict exists”.

The plight of child soldiers is similar to albeit even worse than the one suffered by child workers (see this post). Their rights, and especially their right to education, are violated in a similar way and in addition they have to endure the very specific and horrendous rights violations inherent in armed conflict. Physically vulnerable and easily intimidated, they have to participate in every sordid aspect of modern warfare. Although many are abducted or recruited by force, some probably also “volunteer” because of poverty, religious indoctrination etc. Violent conflict cuts off access to school, drives children away from their homes or families. Children may see enlisting in an army or rebel group as a strategy for survival. They may believe that the group will offer food, protection or security.

From Human Rights Watch:

“Children are sometimes forced to commit atrocities against their own family or neighbors. Such practices help ensure that the child is “stigmatized” and unable to return to his or her home community,” thereby ensuring that they remain loyal to the group.

The numbers of child soldiers are constantly fluctuating given the evolution of different armed conflicts. So it’s difficult to estimate, a difficulty compounded by the secrecy of the often shady recruiters and the wartime conditions. Human Rights Watch estimates that 200,000 to 300,000 children are currently serving as soldiers for both rebel groups and government forces in armed conflicts. This graph shows the countries where there were child soldiers active in armed conflict in 1998:

And this graph is a bit more specific on the African situation since Africa has without any doubt the largest number of child soldiers (Myanmar in Asia also does it’s “best”):

The main human rights declarations and treaties do not specifically mention child soldiers, but the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict sets 18 as the minimum age for direct participation in hostilities, for recruitment into armed groups, and for compulsory recruitment by governments. States may accept volunteers from the age of 16. The definition of war crimes of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of 1998 includes “conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities”.

Child soldiers are undoubtedly victims of armed conflict, but can also commit war crimes, in which case there may be a case for a prosecution respecting the rules of juvenile justice.

More on children’s rights.

(copyright Fredrikke Palmer & unknown & Robert Minor respectively)

Child labor not only keeps children from attending school. It often harms them physically and mentally. It is therefore a double problem from the point of view of the human rights of children.

1. It denies them the education that they need for the exercise of and struggle for their human rights. Without education the freedom of thought and opinion becomes rather academic since thought and opinion requires a certain level of education. Political participation without literacy is also quite difficult. Without education people will find it difficult to struggle against rights violations and to find meaningful work when they are adults. So child labor can have lifetime consequences for human rights.
2. The conditions in which children have to work often lead directly to violations of their rights, such as the right to good health. Moreover the kinds of jobs children have to do are often extremely stultifying, creating feelings of insignificance and hopelessness, with disastrous consequences for their personality and future development.

Legal aspects

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in article 26, includes the right to education and hence, implicitly (not explicitly), the prohibition of child labor since the two are incompatible. Article 10 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights states, rather carefully in order not to frighten away developing countries who might otherwise not have accepted the treaty:

“Children and young persons should be protected from economic and social exploitation. Their employment in work harmful to their morals or health or dangerous to life or likely to hamper their normal development should be punishable by law. States should also set age limits below which the paid employment of child labour should be prohibited and punishable by law”.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child provides the strongest legal language prohibiting illegal child labor but does not make child labor illegal.

Numbers

The International Labor Organization estimates that 246 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 currently work (or about 15% of the world’s children, about 35% of children in Sub-Saharan Africa).

They work in very different industries but mostly in commercial agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, mining, parents’ business and domestic service either at home or in other homes, in factories, sweatshops, fields, tourist attractions etc. Some children work in illicit activities like the drug trade and prostitution or as soldiers. Often their situation is aggravated by child slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage and forced labor.

Where?

In Western countries, child labor has gradually died out. It was common during the industrial revolution (and before) when children as young as four were employed in factories with dangerous working conditions, but labor laws, education laws and technological progress (and some say colonialism) have caused its disappearance.

From Unicef:

“Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the worldwide highest share of child labourers. In the 18 countries in this region with data on child labour, 38 percent of all children between 7 and 14 years of age are engaged in work that can be considered harmful to their development. Among these children, slightly more than half (20 percent of the total) also attend school while another 18 percent are only engaged in labour. Overall, 60 percent of all children between 7 and 14 years attend school. 21 percent of all children are neither in school nor do they engage in labour. These children may, however, perform work that is not considered labour, for example household work for less than 28 hours per week… [T]he share of child labourers among girls is the same as among boys, about 38 percent. On the other hand, the area of residence is strongly associated with child labour: rural children (43 percent) work much more than urban children (25 percent).”

Why?

It’s often the poverty of their parents that forces millions of young children out of school and into work. But companies obviously also have an interest in hiring children. Children earn less, are less vocal defenders of their rights, are more easily forced to accept certain “work procedures” etc. For some professions, the anatomy of children also gives them an advantage compared to adults (mining for instance). Many companies, including Western multinationals, often find the temptation too hard to resist, and the consumers engage in moral complicity when purchasing products assembled or manufactured in developing countries with child labor. Consumer boycotts of such products, however, without compensating measures such as the provision of education for the children in question or benefits to poor families, may simply result in an even worse situation when children are forced into other labor activities, often more hasardous or detrimental.

A child may sometimes consent to work if, for example, the salary is relatively attractive, but such consent may not be informed consent. Child labor may still be an undesirable situation for a child in the long run.

Economic advantages of the abolition of child labor

Child labor undermines the general economy because it lowers general labor standards and wages for all workers (adult workers often suffer from unfair competition since they normally would be paid more and are generally more vocal about their labor conditions). It may have a short-term beneficial effect on a country’s international competitiveness because it allows countries to produce at lower costs and with fewer regulations, but internally in the country it affects the general labor standards and work force.

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More on children’s rights.

However, there’s still a long way to go, especially in developing countries. From the following graph we can see that in several African countries as well as in India, 1 in 10 babies die before they reach the age of 1. That’s horrendous.

Inequalities are extreme: Angola had the highest IMR in 2007: 184. And Sweden the lowest: 2.8. In a country like Bangladesh, 153,000 newborns die each year. Multiply this with the number of non-newborns death before the age of 1, and with a number of similar countries, and with a number of consecutive years, and you have an enormous massacre.

Infant mortality rate is commonly included as a part of standard of living evaluations in economics. However, the Human Development Index, or HDI (see this post), does not include it and focuses on life expectancy at birth as an index of population health.

The most common causes in developing countries are pneumonia and dehydration from diarrhea. The latter cause is a real scandal given the ridiculously easy remedy: Oral Rehydration Solution, or ORS, a mixture of salts, sugar, and water. In developed countries the causes are congenital malformation, birth defects, extreme prematurity, disease, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Neglect, abuse or outright murder are also important causes.

The infant mortality rate is an indicator of state failure. As the IMR indicates the level of a country’s health, health care system or development, an extremely high IMR can corroborate the statement that a particular state is a “failed state” in the sense that it fails in its basic responsibilities to its citizens.
Not surprisingly, wealthy countries – wealthy in the commonly accepted sense of high GDP per capita – have a lower IMR because they have the means to invest in healthcare, sanitation, drugs etc.:

I guess it’s obvious why this is a human rights issue: you can hardly say that people can enjoy their human rights when they die before they are 1. Of course, it’s not as if someone is directly violating these children’s right to life. Infant mortality is in most cases not a deliberate act. But rights can be violated by act as well as omission. In many cases, it’s easy to prevent the child from dying, and those who have the power to do something about it also have the responsibility.

The under-1 age limit for infant mortality is perhaps too restrictive. An additional indicator is the number of deaths of children under-5: