The State of the World's Children 1996 Book

For more than a decade, The State of the World's Children report from UNICEF has become the best-known and most widely used of all United Nations publications. Published in forty languages, it is distributed to media in all countries at the year's end, and has become both a record and a catalyst for the movement to promote the kind of development that benefits today's children--and tomorrow's world. UNICEF's 1996 State of the World's Children report, marking the organization's fiftieth anniversary, examines the plight of children caught in the crossfire of armed conflicts or propelled into the savagery as combatants. It also reflects on the long-term toll taken on the young by wars fought most frequently in impoverished societies least able to rebuild shattered economies and lives. Fifty years ago, out the horror of the Second World War, came a new global commitment to peace. It found expression in the programs and projects of the United Nations and development agencies like UNICEF. This focus on peace continues and UNICEF argues in this report that it can and must be strengthened for children. To help achieve that objective, the report offers an agenda for peace for children that includes a call for a complete ban on land mines and support for a boycott of companies that manufacture them. It also urges governments to honor the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the powerful human rights instrument, now ratified by more than 175 countries, as crucial protection for children. A celebrated voice which highlights the pressing problems of children and offers solutions to them, The State of the World's Children report is an extremely important document for everyone concerned with children worldwide.Read More