BEIJING, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- The international community has been making efforts to improve the welfare of children worldwide with the advocacy of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, approved by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1989.

    The following are some figures released by the UNICEF on the improvement of children's welfare in the past 20 years and the challenges that still remain.

    PHYSICAL HEALTH

    In 1990, the population of children under 15 years old was 1.7 billion.

    About 90 out of 1000 babies died before their fifth birthday, making the under-five mortality rate (U5MR) 90 per thousand. That year also saw 12.5 million deaths of children under five years old.

    In the following years, routine immunization became increasingly important. This medical intervention is estimated to have saved 2.5 million lives annually.

    At the beginning of this century, the UN set as one of its Millennium Development Goals to reduce the U5MR by two thirds by 2015.

    Working towards this goal, governments have been taking action to enhance medical services for children.

    In 2008, the population of children worldwide was 2.2 billion. The global U5MR dropped to 65 per thousand, and the under-five deaths decreased to 8.8 million.

    However, a World Health Organization report issued in May 2009 stated that the U5MR reduction of nearly one third since 1990 still lags far behind the UN Millennium Development Goal.

    EDUCATION

    In 1990, 130 million children were not able to get proper education. This number dropped to 101 million in 2007. Moreover, the proportion of children who had studied until the last primary grade in developing countries was more than 90 percent from 2000 to 2007.

    However, compared to primary education, secondary education is being promoted at a less satisfactory speed. In the developing world excluding China, only 42 percent of children are attending middle schools.

    In addition, gender disparity is a major issue in education promotion. Girls rather than boys, rural rather than urban residents are more prone to be denied admission to school. Literacy among young men is 1.2 times higher than among young women in the least developed countries.

    Gender discrimination in primary education is most serious in the regions of North, Middle and East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

    DRINKING WATER SAFETY

    Half of the world's children were not able to drink clean water in 1990.

    More than 1.6 billion people have gained access to improved drinking water sources between 1990 and 2006, and thus many children's drinking safety was secured.

    Nevertheless, approximately 42.5 million children still lack access to clean drinking water. A total of 1.5 million children under the age of five lost their lives because of unsafe drinking water or a shortage of sanitary facilities.

    Drinking unsafe water is a more serious problem in rural areas because of the unbalanced clean water distribution. Piped water is more than twice as accessible to urban households than to rural residents. In the Asia-Pacific region alone, the drinking conditions for 560 million people need to be improved.

    CHILD PROTECTION

    Child labor is a major issue in the protection of the rights of the child. A number of initiatives have been made to reduce the number of children engaged in child labor. Among them, the most prominent is the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC).

    In 2004, a report issued by the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated the number of children engaged in child labor was 11 percent less than that in 2000.

    However, according to the latest study by the UN Children's Fund, at least 150 million children under 14 were still engaged in child labor globally.

    In addition, violation of children's rights are demonstrated by the following statistics.

    Up to 500 million to 1.5 billion children are victims of violence to various degrees. In addition, 145 million children lost at least one of their parents, 15 million deaths being causedby AIDS. The lives of 60 million children in 33 countries are affected by military conflicts. Finally, 1.2 million children are victims of child trafficking every year.

Special report: Global News Day for Children