14th April 2010 - The 2009 overseas aid figures, released today, show that rich countries are failing to deliver on their promises to poorer countries.Today's figures, from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), show that although there has been a fraction of an increase in total aid, from $122 to $123 billion, the amount of aid has actually fallen by $3.5 billion when compared with last year’s prices. This comes at a time when the World Bank forecasts that 50,000 more children in Sub-Saharan countries may have died this year because of the financial crisis.Max Lawson of Oxfam said: “This lackluster performance from donors is not close to meeting the needs of ...

13th April 2010, United Nations (IPS) - In developed countries, child and maternal mortality is a health problem that has largely been solved.According to the U.N. anti-poverty Millennium Development Goals' (MDGs) website, only 11 out of every 100,000 mothers die in childbirth in the United States, although this figure is on the rise. In Somalia, the number is 1,400.Unlike with HIV/AIDS, there is a cure for maternal and child mortality. The question that the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, a coalition of over 300 NGOs and international institutions, is attempting to answer is how governments and the international community can bring child and maternal care to the countrie...

8th April 2010 - On the occasion of the Twelfth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, from 12-19 April 2010 in Salvador, Brazil, Defence for Children International (DCI), the international movement for the rights of children and adolescents with consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council, and the undersigned organisations call upon States to take immediate action to ensure that juvenile justice systems are effective, child-specific, fair and respectful of rights.General considerationsChildren and adolescents are the principal victims of violence in the world. As highlighted in the conclusions of the United Nations Study on Violence against Childre...

5th April 2010, Somalia,- The administration in Somalia's breakaway region of Somaliland is worried about increase in human trafficking in the region. Officials said children are mostly trafficking from south-central Somalia, because of the lack of effective government.Fadumo Sudi, the Minister for Family and Social Affairs said: “Before, no one believed that human/child trafficking existed in Somaliland but such kinds of crimes occur here.”She was speaking at the reunification of a young girl with her family. She was trafficked from Qardho, northeast region in Putland to Hargeisa, Somaliland, in February. “One day, my sister went to school as usual, but she disappeared. We searched fo...

5th April 2010, Nuevo Laredo, Mexico -- A shootout in northern Mexico between soldiers and suspected drug cartel gunmen killed two children and wounded five of their relatives who were caught in the crossfire, the latest in a string of deaths of bystanders in the nation's drug war. The 5- and 8-year-old brothers were traveling in their family's car when the gunbattle broke out on a highway near the border city of Nuevo Laredo, the Tamaulipas state government said in statement Sunday night. The statement corrected an initial government report that only bystander was killed in the confrontation Saturday night. Two suspected gunmen were also killed. "We ran and tried to hide in the brush, bu...

26th March 2010, Hong Kong (Reuters) - Children born in rural China are three to six times more likely to die before they turn 5 than those in the cities, a study found, highlighting the wide gulf in healthcare provision for the rich and poor in China.Pneumonia, birth asphyxia, and pre-term birth complications were the leading causes of death in children under 5, the researchers said in a paper published on Friday in the Lancet.Led by Igor Rudan at the Croatian Centre for Global Health in Split, Croatia, the researchers searched public databases containing information from 1990 to 2008, including 206 long-term studies on causes of death in children under 5.According to the paper, child morta...