‘The child that is hungry must be fed; the child that is sick must be nursed; the child that is backward must be helped; the delinquent child must be reclaimed; and the orphan and the waif must be sheltered and succored.’
So run the words of the original Declaration of the Rights of the Child drafted back in 1924. The modern version, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, has been signed by all eligible countries apart from the United States.
Yet, every fifth child in the world lives in abject poverty.
In the week of the World Children’s Day, it’s time to acknowledge that children continue to suffer from widespread poverty almost a century after the Declaration was drafted and realize just how daunting the task is of alleviating this problem.