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Children's and young people's rights
Background: Children are our future
Children are our future – that is especially true in developing countries, where in many cases 50 to 70 per cent of the total population is below the age of 25. All a country's hopes are then pinned on children and young people. It is up to them to ensure that their societies undergo the desperately needed social and political change.
But extreme poverty, armed conflicts, AIDS and bad governance rob millions of children of their human rights and opportunities in life: According to the 2009 Annual Report of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), one in seven children in the 50 least developed countries (LDCs) in the world dies before his or her fifth birthday - of hunger, diseases and on account of inhuman conditions.
Around the world some 250,000 children are abused as soldiers, more than 200 million children have to work and 72 million primary school-age children cannot go to school.
The increasing spread of HIV/AIDS means that the number of orphans worldwide is growing: In Africa alone more than 12 million children have lost one or both of their parents to the disease. Many of these AIDS orphans live in extreme poverty.
These figures describe a vicious circle of poverty, lack of prospects and frustration – and a great potential for conflict. The rich countries of the world have their part to play in this catastrophic situation. The fight for children's rights is therefore a key concern of international and thus also of German development policy.
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