(UN News Centre) – Marking Universal Children’s Day, the United Nations today highlighted that the world remains a “deeply unfair” place for the poorest and most disadvantaged children despite major advances since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 26 years ago today. “In just over a generation, the world has cut child death rates by half, put over 90 per cent of children in primary school, and increased by 2.6 billion the number of people with access to safe water,” said UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Anthony Lake in a press release. “Yet children make up almost half of the world’s poor, nearly 250 million children live in conflict-torn countries, and over 200,000 have risked their lives this year seeking refuge in Europe,” he added.
