The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Children's Issues Worldwide 6 volumes

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Children's Issues Worldwide

General Editor Irving Epstein GREENWOOD PRESS

THE GREENWOOD ENCYCLOPEDIA

Children’s Issues WORLDWIDE

OF

THE GREENWOOD ENCYCLOPEDIA

Children’s Issues WORLDWIDE

ASIA AND OCEANIA General Editor

Irving Epstein Volume Editor

Jyotsna Pattnaik

GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut x London

OF

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Greenwood encyclopedia of children’s issues worldwide / Irving Epstein, general editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-313-33614-0 (set : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-33620-1 (v. 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-33618-8 (v. 2 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-33619-5 (v. 3 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-33617-1 (v. 4 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-33616-4 (v. 5 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-33878-6 (v. 6 : alk. paper) 1. Children—Encyclopedias. I. Epstein, Irving, 1951. II. Pattnaik, Jyotsna. HQ767.84.G74 2008 305.2303—dc22 2007031312 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright  C 2008 by Irving Epstein All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007031312 ISBN: 978-0-313-33614-0 (set) ISBN: 978-0-313-33620-1 (Asia and Oceania) ISBN: 978-0-313-33618-8 (Central and South America) ISBN: 978-0-313-33619-5 (Europe) ISBN: 978-0-313-33617-1 (North America and the Caribbean) ISBN: 978-0-313-33616-4 (Sub-Saharan Africa) ISBN: 978-0-313-33878-6 (North Africa and the Middle East) First published in 2008 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10

9 8

7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Preface

Irving Epstein

vii

User’s Guide

xv

Introduction 1.

2.

Jyotsna Pattnaik

Australia

Merlyne Cruz, Glenda MacNaughton, and Sharne Rolfe

Bangladesh

3.

Bhutan

4.

Cambodia

5.

6.

Mesbah-us-Saleheen and Khondaker Mohammod Shariful Huda

Jeffrey S. Weaner, Joann Burkhardt, and Aaron Weaner

China

Heidi A. Ross with Jingjing Lou, Lei Wang, Ran Zhang, and Yuhao Cen

The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) Fiji

8.

Hong Kong

10.

India Indonesia

1

27 55

T. W. Maxwell

7.

9.

xix

Robert W. Spegal

Sharon Bessell and Lynette Petueli Bianca Prather-Jones, Willie Elliott, and Elaine Jarchow

Deepak Kumar Behera and Nibedita Nath John A. Huss and Elaine Jarchow

79

99

123 143

169 189 211

CONTENTS

11.

Japan

12.

Malaysia

13.

Mongolia

14.

Gerald K. LeTendre and Motoko Akiba See Ching Mey Darikhand Bayar and Enkhtuya Sukhbaatar

New Zealand

15.

Pakistan

16.

Philippines

17.

Singapore

18.

South Korea

19.

Sri Lanka

20.

Taiwan

Michael Gaffney, Nicola Taylor, and Nicola Atwool Fazila Gulrez and Sabeen Hafeez Joan Dymphna G. Saniel

22.

Thailand

23.

Turkmenistan

24.

Vietnam

279

301 325 347 369

Youngjoo Kim

395

Hsiu-Zu Ho and Wei-Wen Chen, with Hsin-Yi Kung

Tajikistan

255

Wing-Cheong Chan

Upali M. Sedere

21.

237

Angela Baschieri and Jane C. Falkingham Wirot Sanrattana and Merrill M. Oaks Oguljamal Yazliyeva Gerald W. Fry and Pham Lan Huong

417

439 465 487 511 535

Bibliography

559

Index

567

About the Editors and Contributors

575

The Six-Volume Comprehensive Index begins on page 379 of the final volume, North Africa and the Middle East

[ vi ]

PREFACE Irving Epstein

The decision to publish The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Children’s Issues Worldwide involved a number of considerations, but was primarily influenced by an understanding that children were deserving of an encyclopedia solely dedicated to a discussion of the quality of their lives. Although there are many sources that compile statistical information and data about the state of children around the world, we believed that by summarizing much of that information in one format, it would be easier for the general public, as well as students, teachers, and policy-makers, to gain a foundational understanding of the challenges the world’s children currently confront. However, the difficulties inherent in completing a project of this size and complexity raise larger questions about the ways in which we think about children and childhood in an era of globalization, and it is these questions that I intend to address in the following paragraphs. To begin with, it should be acknowledged that the Encyclopedia is both selective and comprehensive. It is selective, in the sense that we have not been able to adequately cover children’s lives in every country or nationstate throughout the world. Due to the prevalence of political, social, and economic conflict and dislocation, it proved impossible to locate experts who had access to the requisite information, and had the time to write about children in certain countries and affected geographical areas. However, the Encyclopedia is comprehensive, insofar as all major aspects of children’s lives, including educational provision, legal status, family life, health, abuse and neglect, play and recreation, and religious affiliation, are covered within each chapter. Together, the chapters give us a clear picture as to how children are treated and cared for within specific countries and geographical areas, as well as their general quality of life in the twenty-first century. The fact that so many of the chapters within these volumes are co-authored speaks to the penchant for disciplinary specialization that characterizes contemporary academic discourse within the social sciences, a tendency that makes it difficult for a single person to master the many facets of childhood that are covered in the Encyclopedia.

PREFACE

It also reaffirms, however, the usefulness of collaboration, in order to better facilitate the framing of a holistic representation of children’s lives. One can certainly raise the issue as to why we need an encyclopedia that is country- and region-specific in a globalized age. From an organizational and aesthetic perspective, it is reasonable to ask whether this project includes basic redundancies that could be eliminated by adopting a broader, thematic approach. From a conceptual standpoint, it is reasonable to ask whether privileging the nation-state and/or geographic region as a basic unit of analysis makes sense, given the challenges to the long-term viability of the nation-state that globalization tendencies seem to create. My response to both questions is strongly negative, for I believe that issues involving the characteristics of globalization and the nature of childhood can best be understood if they are contextualized. I would therefore reject contentions that an understanding of childhood can be essentialized or that any authentic view of globalization can be formulated through adhering to assumptions that dichotomize the global and the local. By embracing the importance of context, one may indeed at times sacrifice conceptual elegance, and as one reads the various chapters of this volume, no doubt one will find that similar stories are being told in different ways. Certainly, the current legitimacy and long-term viability of certain nationstates and political institutions is implicitly questioned, as the reader learns of their inability to protect children and their complicity in endangering children’s lives. Nonetheless, it is doubtful that within our lifetimes, in spite of the growing prominence of transnational influences we associate with globalization, that the nation-state will dissolve as a basic unit of governance, or that our sense of geographical place will no longer have an impact upon our expressions of personal and cultural identity. Therefore, while the importance of globalization influences upon the twenty-first century lives of children must be acknowledged, and while it is clear that our understandings of childhood are informed through cross-cultural comparison and generalization, the Encyclopedia’s authors reaffirm the importance of focusing upon the lives of children as they are understood within the regional, area, and nation-state framework. This being said, there are a number of issues involving the nature of globalization and childhood that can be noted from the outset. First, globalization has been defined according to radically different terms. For some scholars, it has signified the permanent and inevitable ascendancy of empire, be it Western (Fukuyama 1992; Huntington 1996), or in reaction to the self-serving nature of that analysis, Asian (Frank 1998). For others, it has signified both the triumph of neo-liberal liberalism and the decline of the nation-state as a fundamental organizational unit. Proponents of neo-liberalism, with its embrace of a de-regulated capitalism thriving within an environment of privatization, have associated globalization with these policies; critics point to the resulting decline and elimination of social services traditionally provided by the state that such policies

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have promoted. Widespread international institutional neglect and indifference to the needs of children can certainly be viewed, in part, as a result of these policies. Regardless of one’s political views regarding globalization, its economic dimensions have been characterized by the increasing power of consumption rather than production as a driving economic force. Global consumption patterns are by their nature, more difficult to chart and are less subject to hierarchical control, than are traditional patterns of industrial production. The fluid nature of global trade created a sense of decentering that has been observed in other realms too, including the use of technology to create an information age society (Castells 2000), the fluidity with which cultural interactions are transmitted (Appadurai 1996), and the existence of general patterns of flux, mobility, change, complexity, randomness, and contingency (Bauman 2004). The impact of these forces upon the world’s children is graphically portrayed within the pages of this Encyclopedia. Whether it be through the use of child soldiering, an over-reliance upon child labor and its subsequent denial of basic educational provision, engagement in child trafficking and prostitution, or the promotion of child pornography, often through use of the internet, children in the twenty-first century are increasingly being defined in global terms as consumable and perishable items, to be used, abused, and then discarded by those who are more powerful. Globalization theorists disagree as to whether the effects of these trends are irrevocable or whether the trends themselves need be viewed as rigidly deterministic. What is clear though, is that populations in the developing world are becoming increasingly young; 1.5 billion people throughout the world are aged twelve to twenty-four; 1.3 billion live in the developing world (World Bank 2007). Demographically, a ‘‘youth bulge’’ is predicted, as fertility rates decline. As a result, there will be new pressures for developing countries to integrate their youth into the workforce, encourage more civic engagement, and discourage risk-taking behavior on their part. Most importantly, because of their increasing numbers, youth will have greater opportunities to articulate their own needs within public spaces, to become public self-advocates. The work of UNICEF and other NGOs, in promoting greater child and youth participation in their own affairs, over the past fifteen years, is noteworthy in this regard. The tensions we have noted, between the casual disregard of children’s basic needs and the cynical use of children for personal interest and gain, on the one hand, and the increasing recognition of the potential for child and youth advocacy on the other hand, raise even larger questions as to how basic understandings of childhood are being defined and contested in the twenty-first century. One of the main conclusions one can deduce from a reading of the various chapters of the Encyclopedia is that our understandings of childhood express a significant variation as to how childhood is defined, how children develop, and how their interests are protected. Changing biological

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characteristics associated with childhood and adulthood have had an influence in expanding what it means to be a child in the twenty-first century. In addition, it is clear that notions of childhood are largely social constructions, influenced by such cultural, economic, political and social factors as the nature of labor markets, demographic trends, the creation and growth of mass education, and the changing notions of patriarchy and family roles and their relationship to the state. No longer can childhood be simplistically expressed as simply a transient state of dependency, defined by the child’s relationship to an adult world that she will eventually enter. Instead, it is important to acknowledge the complexity, ambiguity, and malleability that characterize the category we define as childhood. Archaeologists nonetheless point to the materiality of childhood as being an essential factor in understanding how children have lived their lives, and their emphasis upon the materiality of the child’s body (Derevenski 2000, 3–16) has resonance within the pages of this Encyclopedia as well. Throughout these volumes, one gains an appreciation as to how children’s bodies are abused, violated, harmed, or are in fewer cases protected and nourished. One can find a considerable degree of controversy, associated with how the chronological age of the child is defined, or what constitutes child abuse and neglect, when basic educational provision is satisfactory, or when certain forms of child labor can be considered productive and useful. But, as the chapter authors also emphasize the material nature of childhood, including how children play and negotiate social space, and how they adapt to the conditions around them, they reaffirm the view that it makes sense to examine childhood materiality while acknowledging its ambiguity. Governments, activists, scholars, and experts have been aided in their efforts to document how children live through their use of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and as the Convention has indirectly played a significant role in the construct of the categories of analysis within each Encyclopedia chapter, it is useful to make a few comments about its utility and the process through which it has been implemented. The Convention itself was adopted by the General Assembly on November 20, 1989, and entered into force on September 2, 1990. Two subsequent protocols have been passed that deal with the sale of children, child prostitution, child pornography, and child soldiering. Since its inception, the Convention has become one of the most successful international human rights instruments that have ever been created. Ratified by 192 countries (the United States and Somalia are the only two countries belonging to the U.N. that have failed to do so), it sets standards as to how children’s needs and interests should be defined and articulated. Countries are required to regularly report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, a body charged with implementing the Convention, and NGOs are also encouraged to raise questions of concern with the Committee. As a result of this reporting process, member states

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have improved their data collection mechanisms for assessing the conditions under which their children live; some states have created ombudspersons and national governmental units specifically designed to protect and address the needs of children; others have made a good faith effort to give older children and youth a formal means of articulating their interests through the establishment of youth parliaments and related institutional structures. Indeed, national constitutions now include specific provisions regarding the protection of children. It is undeniable that the nearly universal ratification of the Convention has been accompanied by increased world attention to the plight of children and in that process, children’s lives have been saved as their interests and needs are being more clearly articulated (Epstein 2005). It is not surprising therefore, that many of the Encyclopedia authors have used information within country reports submitted to the Committee, documenting specific progress in complying with the articles of the Convention, as a basis for assessing the quality of children’s lives within the specific country. The Convention of course is not a perfect document. Scholars have pointed to its contradictory perspectives, with regard to its ambiguous definitions of the chronological age of childhood, contradictory perspectives involving the degree of autonomy that should be afforded the child, the gendered nature of document language (emphasis on child soldiering but not arranged early child marriage, and the lack of attention to the specific challenges girls confront, for example), and its privileging of the protection of children’s political rights over economic, social, and cultural rights as major deficiencies. Nonetheless, its importance and influence as an international instrument is beyond dispute, its having enhanced significance through the reporting process to which states voluntarily commit themselves and the responses to state reports offered by the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Although many of the rights enumerated within the Convention replicate those that appear in other international instruments, until the Convention was ratified, the rights of children in particular were merely assumed to fall within larger frameworks that were created for adults. It is perhaps the Convention’s greatest strength that it recognizes the fact that children are deserving of rights due their inherent status. This being the case, the rather progressive sections of the document that argue in favor of children themselves exercising their rights to the best of their capabilities makes logical sense. When examining country reports, the Committee operates from a fundamental assumption that the implementation of children’s rights cannot be viewed as a voluntary or charitable exercise. Bestowing rights to children is not an act of kindness or generosity; it is a State responsibility to secure, protect, and promote such rights insofar as they are inherently guaranteed to children on the basis of their humanity. Although the Convention was adopted at a time when the nature of globalization forces was just beginning to be appreciated, its wisdom has

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stood the test of time at least in one respect. The increasingly harsh circumstances with which many of the world’s children must contend, brought about to some degree by the globalization tendencies we have previously described, reinforce the truism that it is becoming increasingly perilous to their own health, safety, and well-being for children to be forced into relying upon adults to defend and protect their basic interests. They are too often the first casualties of poverty, internal conflict and displacement, and illness; the first victims when widespread social suffering occurs. Thus, the need for children to play an increasingly assertive role in defending and articulating their own interests through public advocacy, given the frequent abdication of adult responsibility in this area, is a theme that is strongly expressed within the Convention and is one that has become more salient through the passage of time. It is our hope that this Encyclopedia will serve a useful purpose by enhancing understanding about children’s lives, the challenges they confront, and the courage they and their advocates express, as they struggle to create a better future during the first decade of the twenty-first century. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Children’s Issues Worldwide could not have been published without the collective efforts of hundreds of international scholars, a dedicated group of volume editors, and the hard work of the Greenwood Publishing Group editorial staff. Marie Ellen Larcada, who has since left Greenwood, was instrumental in conceiving of the project more than two years ago. But it was acquisitions editor Mariah Gumpert, who through her unlimited patience, laser-like focus, and generous encouragement, is most responsible for the Encyclopedia’s completion. My personal gratitude for her efforts is enormous. The task of generating substantive essays about the lives of children in so many countries and regions was extremely complex but was made easier through the hard work of volume editors Laura Arntson, Leslie J. Limage, Sheryl L. Lutjens, Jyotsna Pattnaik, Ghada Hashem Talhami, and Eleonora Villegas-Reimers. Each volume editor contacted numerous experts and convinced them of the importance of the project, worked assiduously with their authors in editing and revising manuscripts, and framed each volume in ways that have insured that the entire Encyclopedia is accessible and reader-friendly. For their efforts and for the efforts of the chapter contributors, I wish to convey my deepest appreciation.

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REFERENCES Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bauman, Z. 2004. ‘‘A Sociological Theory of Post-modernity.’’ In Contemporary Sociological Theory, eds. C. Calhoun, J. Moody, S. Pfaff, J. Gerteis, and I. Virk, eds. Oxford: Blackwell. 429–440. Castells, M. 2000. The Rise of the Network Society, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Derevenski, J. S. 2000. ‘‘Material Culture Shock: Confronting Expectations in the Material Culture of Children.’’ In Children and Material Culture, Joanna Derevenski, ed. London: Routledge. 3–16. Epstein, I. 2005. ‘‘The Convention on the Rights of the Child: The Promise and Limitations of Multilateralism as a Means of Protecting Children.’’ UNICEF– China, International Forum on Children’s Development, October 29–31. http://www.unicef.org/china/P3_EPSTEIN_paper.pdf. Frank, A. G. 1998. Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley: University of California. Fukuyama, F. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press. Huntington, S. P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Making of the New Order. New York: Simon and Schuster. World Bank. 2007. World Bank Report: Development and the Next Generation. Washington, DC: World Bank.

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USER’S GUIDE

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Children’s Issues Worldwide is a six-volume set covering the world’s most populous regions. . . . . . .

Asia and Oceania Central and South America Europe North America and the Caribbean Sub-Saharan Africa North Africa and the Middle East

All of the volumes contain an introduction to the set from the general editor and a more specific introduction to the volume, written by the volume editor. A copy of the Convention on the Rights of the Child is also printed as an appendix in the North Africa and the Middle East volume. The volumes are divided into chapters organized alphabetically by country or in a few instances by regional name (where countries are grouped together on a regional basis). The following outline includes the sub-sections for each chapter. In a few instances, particularly when information is unavailable or irrelevant to a specific country or region, the sub-section has been eliminated. NATIONAL PROFILE The information gathered for this sub-section may include general demographic information, a summary of recent historical and political change within the country or region, a summation of the general challenges that confront the population, and how they might affect children.

USER’S GUIDE

OVERVIEW A discussion of the issues that affect children within the population, highlighting the general state of their welfare and the changing nature of their circumstances. EDUCATION A discussion of issues of access, literacy levels, drop-out, opportunities for educational advancement, equity and fairness with regard to socioeconomic status, gender, ethnic and religious affiliation, and disability. PLAY AND RECREATION A discussion of popular forms of play, children’s use of toys and the media, their use of technology, sports, games, and other types of recreation. CHILD LABOR A discussion of relevant legislation to protect children, efforts to enforce such legislation, cultural norms, social values, and economic pressures involving the use of child labor, the type of work children are expected to complete, the effects of globalization tendencies upon child labor abuses. FAMILY A discussion of relevant family structures, gender roles within the families, demographic trends regarding family size, effects of divorce, intergenerational relationships, effects of poverty and general socio-economic status upon family organization and behavior, rites of passage. HEALTH A discussion of issues related to infant and child mortality, vaccination and childhood disease, the general quality of medical care provided to children, access to clean water, exposure to air and other forms of pollution, and relevant sex education programming. LAWS AND LEGAL STATUS A discussion of how the country’s legal system affects children—what protections they are given under the law, and how legal safeguards are guaranteed. The nature of the juvenile justice system, if one exists, how gang activity is handled, conditions for children and youth who are incarcerated.

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RELIGIOUS LIFE A discussion of prevailing religious practices and their meanings for children, forms of religious training, the role of religious organizations in children’s lives. CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT A discussion including statistics that illustrates the scope of child abuse and neglect within the country or region, types of abuse and neglect and the reasons for their occurrence, and preventative measures that have been taken; how specific issues such as child soldiering, child trafficking, and child pornography are addressed. GROWING UP IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY A discussion summarizing findings from other sub-sections of the chapter while offering assessments as to future prospects as well as what further measures will have to be taken in order to significantly improve children’s lives in the immediate and near future. RESOURCE GUIDE Suggested readings, relevant video, film and media sources, web sites, and relevant NGOs and other organizations are listed in this section. Whenever possible, sources are annotated. MAPS AND INDEXES A regional map accompanies each volume, and each chapter has its own country or regional map. Each volume includes an index consisting of subject and person entries; a comprehensive index for the entire set is included at the end of the North Africa and the Middle East volume.

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INTRODUCTION Jyotsna Pattnaik

As the largest and the most populous region in the world with more than 60 percent of the current human population, Asia/Oceania is also the largest shareholder of issues facing children. Data reported from surveys and census on children’s issues may be over- or under-represented; they suggest, however, a significant failure and lack of commitment on the part of national governments to address these issues. Social exclusion of children as a group (and subgroups in particular) continues to marginalize children in the region. All countries in the region have ratified United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and promised commitment to formulating and pursuing goals that would eliminate malnutrition, ensure basic education, water, sanitation, and immunization, and protect children against exploitation. However, periodic reviews by transnational agencies reveal a range between astounding progress in some countries and stagnation and dismal decline in others. A majority of the countries in Southeast Asia and Central Asia will fail to meet most of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015. Experts cite many factors—economic, cultural, and social—that contribute to slow progress in the region. While many issues facing children are historically rooted, new and emerging challenges arise under the influence of globalization, technology explosion, and urbanization. Globalization’s economic impact is highly visible in the form of child labor in the export industry, sex industry, and non-formal sectors, plus growing consumerism among children. Its cultural colonization is equally visible in the popularity of western youth cultures (forms of entertainment, dress habits, and values) and loss of local languages, entertainments, games, and sports. While open market and immigration policies have increased diversity and plurality within countries, they have also paved the way for cross-border sex and drug trafficking, illegal immigration, and terrorism. According to the Protection Project, a human rights research institute in Washington, DC, between 50,000 and 70,000 Thai females participate in Japan’s commercial sex market alone

INTRODUCTION

(Bower 2005). These issues, individually and in concert, prevent children’s access to basic capabilities, such as the ability to be healthy, well housed, well fed, and integrated into the community (Sen 2002). Lack of political will and/or an inability to implement effective social policies by national governments also serve as barriers to addressing children’s issues in the region. Corruption at all levels of society has led to misappropriation of funds received from national and international aid agencies. National governments’ spending on social service sectors is inadequate and is overshadowed by military expenditures. For example, the ‘‘2003 State of the Child’’ (UNICEF 2003) reported that, in South Asia, the percentage of central government expenditure allocated to health was 2 percent; education, 3 percent; and defense, 17 percent. As a percentage of their total expenditures the South Asian governments’ defense expenditures are highest among all the world’s regions. It is appropriate to mention here that, while many internal developments have pushed governments in the region to make efforts to address children’s issues, the major push for action has come from outside the region––international trends, research, debates/discussions, and mandates. Although not legally binding, international policy documents such as UNCRC; Declaration of the World Summit for Children (1990), the Beijing Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women (1995); Education for All (EFA), and the Millennium Declaration leading to the eight MDGs 2000 (for more information on MDG goals, see the UN Millennium Project website), have contributed to setting global norms and standards for member countries. They have also forced national governments to introduce new laws or modify existing laws, such as the introduction of Compulsory Education Act and the Family Law Act in Fiji. In the present context of the world’s preparation to meet EFA and MDG goals, this volume is timely and will inform readers of the current developments and challenges facing individual countries in the region; it will also provide a comparative perspective on commonalities and uniqueness in issues facing children in the region. Although alphabetically presented, the chapters in this volume fall under the following major sub-regions: East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, and Oceania. ISSUES FACING CHILDREN IN ASIA/OCEANIA There are myriad issues that challenge children’s well-being in Asia/ Oceania. The most salient of these issues are discussed here. Educational Issues The educational expenditure of national governments in Asia/Oceania has been steadily increasing, with budgets up by 80 percent on average.

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International financial support for EFA goals in Asia/Oceania increased from 3.8 billion US dollars in 1985 to 6 billion dollars in 1990 and 7.4 billion dollars in 1995 (UNESCO 2000). There has been a steady growth in primary school enrollment. In addition, preschool education has been expanded with enrollment in nurseries, kindergartens, and daycare centers (UNESCO 2000). However, there is a need for improving the quality of education, including improving curriculum and pedagogy, teaching materials, teacher training, and evaluation methods. Primary school dropout rates in the region are alarming, and retention measures are not adequate. Disparities exist in educational participation among children based on their regional, rural/urban, gender, socio-economic, religious, and caste/ethnic affiliations within a country. Government initiatives to address discrimination against children with disabilities and to supply provisions to meet the needs of these children in schools and society are minimal. Government spending on education has not matched the need for free primary education in some countries in the region. For example, China has not achieved the nine years of free and compulsory education required by laws introduced in 1986, and there is not enough money to meet the growing demand for tertiary education in the country. Indonesia ranks lowest among its Asian neighbors in public education expenditures. Most of the countries in East and Southeast Asia have adopted the policy of decentralization, transferring fiscal responsibilities from central government to local areas and relying on local resources for educational management. Experts maintain, however, that such a policy has widened educational gaps between areas with a strong revenue base and those with a struggling economy. For example, the literacy rate of China’s poorest regions lags almost 20 percentage points behind their most literate counterparts (King and Cordeiro 2005). Poverty Although the Asian economy has grown significantly in the last decade, a vast majority of Asia’s population live under unacceptably impoverished conditions. The Asian Developmental Bank (ADB 2006) estimates that about 46 percent of the population in the People’s Republic of China, 44.4 percent in the Philippines, 50.5 percent in Indonesia, 78 percent in India, and 72.6 percent in Pakistan lived on $2.00 a day in 2003. Household poverty has affected almost all aspects of children’s lives in Asia. The largest deficiencies in health and education occur among the poor. For example, between 2000 and 2003 in Indonesia, 52 percent of out-ofschool children (children who are eligible for but not attending school) were from the bottom quintile, compared with only 6 percent of children in the richest households (UNESCO 2006). Alberto Minujin and Enrique Delamonica (2003) reported increased inequalities in mortality rates of children under five years between poor and rich families from the

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mid-1980s to mid-1990s in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Philippines, and Kazakhstan. Economic liberalization and growth did not accompany economic democracy in the region. Some East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore have established economic policies (such as land distribution in Japan, investments in education) that support people from various income strata. On the other hand, income distribution in India is highly skewed. While it ranks eighth among countries in the number of millionaires worldwide, it ranks 126th on the Human Development Index (Aiyar 2007). Moreover, economists in India lament that India’s booming economy (a gross domestic product [GDP] growth rate of 9.2 percent in 2006–2007) under the neo-liberal market policies has bypassed the rural poor, as evidenced by dwindling rural sector expenditures by the government and increasing rates of migration, poverty, unemployment, and suicide among Indian farmers. Health Issues Infant mortality in Asia and Oceania has declined from 171 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1955 to 52 deaths in 2000 (UN Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2007). Some countries in the region, such as India, Cambodia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, and several Central Asian republics, are far from the MDG goal number 4: ‘‘Reduce child mortality.’’ Childhood under-nutrition and underweight are recognized as important public health problems with negative consequences on all aspects of children’s development, performance, and survival in the region. Between 1990 and 2015, the prevalence of under-nutrition in Asia/Pacific was estimated to decrease from 35.1 percent to 18.5 percent (de Onis et al. 2004), and the largest decline was estimated in Eastern Asia due to the gains in China, where underweight prevalence was reduced by more than half (UNICEF 2006). Child under-nutrition also remains high in the Philippines, Indonesia, and even in Sri Lanka, which has a history of great achievements in the social services sector. The highest levels of underweight prevalence are found in South Asia, where almost half (46 percent) of all children under five are underweight. South Asia is projected to have high levels of childhood underweight in 2015. AIDS is another concern in the region. Decades of government denial and neglect, plus societal stigma and hostility, have contributed to the growth of the epidemic in the region. At the end of 2006, about 7.8 million people were living with AIDS in South and Southeast Asia (World Health Organization 2007). There is an urgent need for prevention as well as intervention measures such as preventing mother-to-child transmission of the virus and addressing the needs of children orphaned by AIDS. According to the 2007 UN Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific report (UNESCAP 2007), the region has $7.3 billion in

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HIV/AIDS-related treatment costs in 2001, an amount that is likely to increase to $17.6 billion by 2010. The report maintains that the cost of response to HIV/AIDS is so high that some countries in the region can no longer afford to bear it. Despite impressive economic growth, UNESCAP (2007) reports that the region is lagging behind all other regions on health spending and that about 20 developing countries in the region spend less than $20 per person per year on health-related expenses. Including both government and private expenditure, South Asia spends only 4.4 percent of its GDP on health, while East Asia and the Pacific spend 5.0 percent. In contrast, Sub-Saharan Africa spends 6.1 percent and Latin America and the Caribbean spend 6.8 percent. War and Conflict Children in many parts of the region face disruption, displacement, and death because of prolonged sectarian conflict. Children are also forcefully recruited into armed conflicts in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Nepal, and the Philippines. Up to one quarter of the world’s child soldiers are in East Asia and the Pacific (UNICEF 2003). By 2007, all the countries in the region have ratified the Optional Protocol to UNCRC on ‘‘Involvement of children in armed conflict,’’ which restricts the minimum age for compulsory recruitment and direct participation in armed conflict and other hostilities to eighteen years. However, child soldiers are still recruited by rebel forces in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and other countries in the region. In addition, after disarmament, limited measures have been taken to address the psycho-social needs of such children, even after the conflict is over. Millions of internally displaced people live in Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Asylum seekers from conflict-torn countries flee to neighboring countries, as witnessed in the case of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and Thailand. Refugee families and children continue to struggle for their rights because several countries in Asia have not ratified the UN Refugee Convention and/or do not follow the convention even after ratification. Discrimination Against Girls Girls in Asia and the Pacific face discriminations and violence from many fronts within and outside of their own families. Girls fall behind in every aspect of the Human Development Index (HDI) in the region. The female child worker is paid less than her male counterpart. In South Asia, girls are more likely to be underweight than boys. The legal system in many countries in Asia/Oceania discriminates against females. According to the 2007 UN Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP 2007) report, with the exception of several Pacific island

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countries, there are wide gender gaps in primary school participation in the region. In Afghanistan, the enrollment of girls in primary schools is 47 percent lower than that of boys; in Pakistan, it is 29 percent, and it is more than 10 percent in Laos, Nepal and Cambodia. The gap further widens in secondary and tertiary levels of education. The gender ratio is deteriorating in the region. Millions of girls are missing in South and East Asia. The cultural belief of preference for boys over girls has contributed to harmful practices such as sex selective infanticide and feticide. Religious customs such as devadasis (female servants of god) in India and honor killings in Pakistan continue to threaten the girl child’s well-being. About one million Asian children, mostly girls between five and ten years old, are lured or forced to work in commercial sex markets every year (UNESCAP 2007). Intercountry sex trafficking of girls is a major issue in Asia. According to the 2006 GAP (Gender Achievement and Prospects in Education) report, which evaluates progress by countries toward the MDG goal number 3: ‘‘Promote gender equality and empower women,’’ most countries in the Asia/Pacific region failed to meet the goal by 2005, and with the current rate of progress, gender parity will not be achieved even by 2015. The 2007 UNESCAP report projects that an increase of even 1 percent in female secondary school enrollment rates would lead to a 0.23 percent increase in the region’s annual economic growth. The report also maintains that the entire region is losing $42 to $47 billion annually due to a lower labor force participation rate among women and another $16 to $30 billion annually due to gender gaps in education, which contribute to the lower productivity of women. Issues of Indigenous People’s Rights Asia and Pacific is home to about 250 million indigenous peoples. The goal of the first International Decade on the World’s Indigenous Peoples, 1994–2004, was to strengthen international cooperation to address problems faced by indigenous groups in such areas as human rights, the environment, development, education, and health. Some progress has been reported. For example, Bangladesh and Vietnam have included indigenous peoples’ issues in poverty reduction strategy papers, the Philippines passed the Indigenous Peoples Act in 1997, and tribal languages have been developed and used as mediums of instruction in primary schools in the region. However, experts maintain that indigenous communities and their children are still the poorest and most marginalized communities in the region. According to Ganesh Thapa of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in the year 2000, indigenous peoples constituted only 9 percent of the population but 40 percent of the poor in China and 11 percent of India’s rural population were indigenous peoples, but they comprised 48 percent of the country’s poor (GALDU 2007). Thapa notes that even with the halving of poverty (MDG number 1, ‘‘Eradicate

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extreme poverty and hunger’’) by 2015, the majority of the remaining poor will still be found among the indigenous people in Asia. Factors such as high family poverty, loss of land, displacement as the result of economic modernization policies, prolonged conflict between and among indigenous communities and national governments, as well as societal stigma affect children’s access to quality health and educational services. In addition, there has been an increase in HIV/AIDS infection among indigenous youth in the region. Commercial Exploitation of Children The majority of the world’s child laborers live in Asia/Oceania. There are laws that prevent children from working in formal sectors; however, a vast majority of the child laborers work in informal sectors. Domestic workers are not protected by labor laws. A high number of children, especially girls, serve as domestic workers in South Asia. The involvement of children in the sex industry is an area of great concern in the region. Thailand is the first country in the region to pass laws that impose greater penalties on customers than on sellers for involvement in commercial sex with underage partners. All countries in the region have ratified Article 12(1) of the optional protocol to UNCRC on ‘‘The sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography’’ passed in 2001. Many of them have also ratified related treaties such as the Protocol to the Convention against Transnational Organized Crimes on Human Trafficking and ILO’s Convention No. 182 on Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor (2000). Based on the recommendations of the first and second World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (held at Stockholm, Sweden, 1996, and Yokohama, Japan, 2001, respectively), some countries in the region have instituted domestic laws and national plans to address the issue. However, according to the UNICEF estimate, about one million children between ages twelve to seventeen work as sex workers in Asia, the highest rate among all regions in the world. Trafficking of children has been acknowledged as a labor issue, human rights issue, criminal issue, and public health issue. Asia is the most vulnerable region for sex trafficking because of its large child population, growing urbanization and industrialization, unemployment, and a large percentage of the population living in extreme poverty. Legal Issues A vast majority of the countries in the region have not aligned their domestic laws, including religious and customary laws, with the requirements of international standards. For example, children under sixteen can receive life imprisonment in Bangladesh. In Pakistan, the minimum age

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of criminal responsibility is seven. Juvenile and adult offenders are often kept in the same prison facility. The definition of a child has been inconsistently applied in legal documents across various aspects related to children’s life including labor participation, voting, and marital rights. In many cases, even the existing legal documents and constitutional mandates are not enforced. For example, in 2002, the Government of Pakistan passed the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO). One of the provisions of JJSO is the abolishment of the death penalty. However, in 2002, there were 200 children on death row in the Punjab province alone (Amnesty International 2005). There is also a need for extra-territorial legislation to address issues such as cross-border sex trafficking of children and women in the region. Most countries in the region have been either source, transit, or destination countries or some combination thereof. Cross-border cooperation efforts meet a host of challenges when laws among countries differ and obtaining evidence is an arduous task. Corporal punishment in schools is not illegal in most countries in South Asia. It is also legally sanctioned in public schools in Pakistan. Corporal punishment within the family is not prohibited. While there has been a dramatic increase in the number of street children in all major cities in Asia/ Oceania, there are not enough legal safeguards and enforcement mechanisms to protect the rights of street children––not even to protect them from police brutality. Street children in India and most countries in the region are routinely detained illegally, beaten, tortured, and sometimes killed by police, and the law allows de facto immunity of police officers from prosecution. TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: PROMISES AND CHALLENGES The twenty-first century poses both promises and challenges to the region. Issues facing particular sub-regions are presented here. The subregional trends and statistics presented need to be read with caution as there are wide variations among countries. East Asia Among all the sub-regions in Asia/Oceania, East Asia has made the most significant progress. The Human Development Index (HDI) trend for East Asia has inclined sharply from 0.5 in 1975 to 0.78 by 2004 (United Nations Development Programme 2006). Some countries in the sub-region have done a better job of converting income into education and health opportunities. For example, with a GDP of $6,000 (less than half of Saudi Arabia’s GDP of $14,000), China has achieved an HDI of 0.77 (compared to Saudi Arabia’s HDI of 0.78; UNDP 2006). Most countries in this sub-region have established nine years of compulsory schooling for children. The enrollment number in secondary

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schools for most of the countries is much higher compared with other sub-regions in Asia. China reports about 78 percent enrollment in junior high schools (twelve to fifteen years), and in Japan and Hong Kong more than 90 percent of children complete upper secondary or an equivalent vocational education. Children’s access to technology is widespread and in fact has become a concern with the rise of internet child trafficking and child pornography cases. However, compulsory schooling did not accompany free schooling provisions as in the case of China and Laos. Therefore, countries in the region need to address issues of equity, quality, and educational funding, especially for children from underserved communities. UNESCO (2000) rightly points out that making education free of cost dramatically enhances a country’s progress toward universalization of primary education, as in the case of Uganda and Malawi. With the exception of Taiwan, educational provisions for children with special needs are far behind the developments in the western world. Countries in East Asia need to make efforts toward early diagnosis of children’s needs, mandate inclusive education to incorporate children with mild disabilities in regular educational institutions, design curricula that address needs of children with disabilities, and provide ongoing support services for these children and their families. To counter excessive emphasis on academics, countries in East Asia have been implementing some form of curriculum reforms focusing on overall development of the learner: balancing academics with creativity, relevancy, and personal choice; and focusing on national as well as individual interests. The transition phase is critical and the countries in East Asia need to focus on changing the educational beliefs and expectations of parents, teachers, and administrators and on training teachers to move from a product-oriented focus to a process-oriented one. The sub-region needs to address the uneven developmental progress among countries. For example, among 177 countries in the world, the HDI ranking for Japan is 7 and for China, 81 (UNDP 2006). According to UNICEF (2006), Singapore has the lowest mortality rate in the world for children under five, lower than all industrialized countries except Iceland, and East Asia (and Pacific) has the highest level of household iodized salt consumption in the developing world after Latin America/ Caribbean. The government spending on education in 2001 exceeded US$16.31 billion, or roughly 5.89 percent of the GNP (4.22 percent for public schools and 1.67 percent for private ones) in Taiwan (Government Information Office, Republic of China, 2004). However, in all aspects of life and society, the region faces continuing challenges in achieving gender equality and preventing intra- and intercountry commercial sexual exploitation of girls. Parental abuse of children in Japan is drawing world-wide attention (for more information on the topic, see the award-winning

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documentary, Conquering the Darkness—The Fight against Memories of Abuse, 2006). The decentralization process in East Asia has been uneven and in many cases has not benefited children and families in poor communities. To reap the potential developmental benefits of a decentralized government system, the central governments in the region need to implement effective accountability systems to monitor and evaluate the activities of local governments, ensure intergovernmental transfers of funds in a timely fashion, and strengthen local fiscal and financial structures (White and Smoke 2005). Southeast Asia The sub-region has experienced rapid economic progress in recent decades, except in Cambodia, which is considered one of the poorest countries in the world. Countries in Southeast Asia have experienced higher primary school enrollment and lower infant mortality. However, in Cambodia, the male population has an average schooling of 4.17 years in contrast to females with 2.54 years. Cambodia has very high rate of child mortality and is least likely to reach the target set for MDG goal number 4, ‘‘Reduce Child Mortality.’’ There are also growing gaps between rich and poor and boys and girls in the sub-region. Issues such as ethnic conflicts, discrimination against minorities and refugees, and internal political unrest are recurring challenges in the region. Child labor is a problem in most of the countries in Southeast Asia despite legal safeguards. There are growing numbers of street children in major cities in Southeast Asia. Children from indiginous communities in mountain areas and from ethnic minority communities remain among the poorest and lack adequate access to education, health care, and other life needs. Children with disabilities, for the most part, are excluded from society and from school. Trafficking of children is an ongoing issue that Southeast Asian countries need to address. It is estimated that nearly one third of all global trafficking trade occurs in Southeast Asia (Richard 1999, cited by Derks 2000); about 60 percent are trafficked within the region and 40 percent are trafficked outside the region (Derks 2000). About 60 percent of the trafficked people in the U.S. are from Southeast Asia (Richard 1999, cited by Derks 2000). Thailand has been identified as a source as well as a receiving country. A common and dangerous form of trafficking in the region deals with parental consent and involvement in the process. Efforts have been made at the national, regional, and international level to address the issue. Governments have introduced policies such as the extension of compulsory education from six to nine years. Thailand also prohibits the sexual abuse of children through the Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act, 1996. Bilateral agreements have been signed with other countries. International organizations have been actively

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involved in the region to address the issue. Although some progress has been made, countries are far from implementing the key recommendations of the 1999 Bangkok Declaration on Irregular Migration. A large number of children in Southeast Asia are infected or affected by HIV/AIDs. Many children live at high risk of being infected by HIV as well. National and international NGOs and other organizations have launched successful programs to deal with the issue. For example, the Educational Development Center (2007) in Thailand has implemented comprehensive and locally tailored programs linking research and practice in three Southeast Asian countries: HIV prevention education and vocational training to youth in hill tribe villages in Thailand; working with HIVaffected street children in Cambodia; providing care and support to HIVaffected and infected children in Vietnam. There is a need to replicate such projects in the sub-region while simultaneously implementing preventive measures that are comprehensive, multisectoral, and sustainable to address the root cause of the issue. South Asia Five of the fifty Least Developed Countries (Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal) in the world are located in South Asia. South Asia is also home to the majority of the world’s children. However, South Asia falls behind other sub-regions in almost all aspects of children’s development and well-being. A stagnant economy in most of the countries accompanied by weak governance and corruption, insufficient infrastructure, internal conflict, and natural disasters pose challenges in meeting children’s rights to even the most basic needs of life. Social exclusion based on gender, social class, caste, ethnicity, geographical location, religion, disability, and/or language further marginalizes children. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute researchers, Smith and Haddad (2000), half of the world’s underweight children live in South Asia, and by 2020 South Asia will still have 37 percent of the world’s underweight children. A 2006 World Bank report titled India’s Undernourished Children: A Call for Reform and Action cited that, with approximately 60 million underweight children, India had the world’s highest number of underweight children, nearly double of that of Sub-Saharan Africa (Gragnolati 2006). With a significant number of children in need of quality services in health and education, one of the major balancing tasks for South Asian governments in the twenty-first century will be the challenge of balancing quantity and quality of service. The share of public spending on education in the GNP has declined since the EFA declaration in South Asian countries. The poor quality of education, including a shortage of teachers particularly qualified and unqualified teachers, endangers the chance of attaining EFA goals by countries in the sub-region including India as documented in the Public

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Report on Basic Education in India (De and Dreze 1999). The subregion has high dropout rates, and about 40 percent of children drop out before completing primary school. Nepal has the highest dropout rate in the world, and about 43 percent of students repeat grade one (UNESCO 2007). In most countries in the region, the length of compulsory education is up to age fourteen or grade eight. However, some countries in South Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan) require only five years of schooling. Educational policies among countries vary. There is no constitutionally guaranteed free education in Maldives; Bhutan and Nepal charge fees despite legally guaranteed free education; other South Asian countries provide free education although secondary expenditures are burdensome for families Education funding in South Asia is lowest among all other sub-regions in Asia. According to the EFA Global Monitoring Report (UNESCO 2007), total public expenditure on education (as a percent of GNP) by the sub-region was 3.3 percent in the year 2004. For individual countries, the public expenditure on education in the year 2004 was 8.6 percent for Maldives, 2.0 percent for India, and 2.1 percent for Bangladesh. Six South Asian countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, and Nepal) were among the twenty-five countries in the world selected for the ‘‘25 by 2005’’ acceleration campaign by UNICEF. Under the microscopic scrutiny of world organizations and the international pressure to meet UNCRC mandates and MDG and EFA goals, South Asian countries will be required to intensify their efforts to reach out to all children. Birth registration is also a problem in South Asia. Bangladesh has introduced an electronic program that aims to achieve 100 percent birth registration by 2008. Birth registration impacts laws related to child prostitution, early marriage, and youth detention. South Asia is one of the lowest performing regions in the world in the area of gender equality. The 2006 Gender, Institution, and Development Index, compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD 2006), which evaluated 161 countries on an array of 60 indicators of gender discrimination reported low rankings for South Asia countries: India, 95; Pakistan, 108; and Bangladesh, 101. An example of gender discrimination is Pakistan’s legal age for marriage—sixteen for girls and eighteen for boys. Central Asia Since their independence from the former USSR, countries in the subregion have faced many challenges. On a positive note, economic performance and stability for the region has been increasing steadily since the 1998 Russian economic crisis, especially in countries that successfully launched market economies. However, rising living standards, corruption at both the institutional and individual levels, and lack of democratic

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participation and social services pose serious challenges for children’s well-being. Overall levels of public expenditure on health and education remain low in many countries and have not increased since 1998. Kazakstan and Turkmenistan experienced increased child mortality rates from 1990 to 2004 (Asian Developmental Bank 2006). Factors such as the dissolution of the Soviet Union, internal conflicts, territorial disputes, and cross-border migrations have left thousands of families and children without determined nationalities and consequent denial of services, including enrollment in schools in their country of residence. Regional cooperation among Central Asian governments is needed to solve issues of nationality. According to the UNICEF’s social monitor (UNICEF 2003), the rate of infant death in Central Asia is twelve times greater than in western industrialized countries, 89 deaths per 1,000 children in Tajikistan. The survival of the child is a continuing concern despite a plummeting birth rate. Factors such as extreme poverty, parental unemployment, erosion of state-funded social services, violence and sexual abuse at home, and family abandonment have pushed many children to prostitution. Other issues such as child trafficking, illegal adoptions, and violence at home, community, school, and residential institutions need serious attention as well. Central Asian governments need to institute social services, in addition to community-based educational programs, to engage youth in meaningful activities. Child abandonment is a growing social issue in Central Asia. Central Asian governments have been placing thousands of neglected and abandoned children in institutions. However, experts recommend an increase in public spending on social services including health and education, higher levels of social transfers to families with young children; and supporting families in crisis rather than placing children in institutions. Severe physical punishments at home and in schools, along with police brutality are accepted and widely practiced in Central Asian countries. The participation of street children in illegal economic activities including selling drugs, smuggling, and prostitution will continue to grow unless governments upgrade the quality of their education systems and adopt poverty reduction measures. There are unresolved issues surrounding gender inequality and gender discrimination in education, employment, and health care in Central Asian countries. There is a need to institute and enforce anti-discriminatory legislation to protect girls. Governments in the sub-region need to organize educational awareness campaigns for parents to help them understand the value of their girls’ education and institute incentive programs to stop premature dropping out of girls from school. Central Asian countries need to increase their education spending, currently very low ranging between 2–3.7 as a percentage of GNP, compared to 4–6 percentage for countries with higher educational achievement.

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Oceania Oceania has the highest inter-country variations in almost all issues that affect children’s well-being. While Australia and New Zealand have made significant progress in addressing children’s issues, many Polynesian, Micronesian, and Melanesian countries lag behind. For example, the mortality rate for children under five per 1,000 births ranges from as low as 6 (per 1,000) in Australia and 7 in New Zealand, to as high as 98 in Papua New Guinea and 134 in Timor-Leste (UNESCO 2007). The 2006 HDI ranking for Australia was 3 and for New Zealand was 20. Other countries in Oceania were in the medium range: Fiji, 90; Solomon Islands, 128; and Papua New Guinea, 139. In some parts of Oceania, childhood obesity is a growing trend and health concern in Oceania. In other parts of Oceania, moderate (19 percent in Vanautu) to severe stunting (as high as 49 percent in Timor-Leste) is reported. With the exception of Australia and Papua New Guinea, HIV infection levels are low in other Oceania countries. Papua New Guinea has the highest HIV infection rate in the South Pacific. However, infection from other sexually transmitted diseases among pregnant women is a disturbing trend in some countries in the sub-region. For example, UNAIDS (2005) reports that about 43 percent of women receiving antenatal services were infected with at least one sexually transmitted disease in Apia, the capital city of Samoa. There have been significant negative reversals in immunization coverage in Oceania: from 70 percent coverage in 1990 to 48 percent coverage in 2004 (The United Nations Association of the United States of America, 2007). According to the 2007 EFA global monitoring report for the Pacific region, pre-primary school enrollment is more than 90 percent in Australia, New Zealand, and Tuvalu, and below 20 percent in Fiji and Timor-Leste (UNESCO 2007). In 2004, the net enrollment ratio (NER) for pre-primary school education was above 90 percent except in the Solomon Islands, where it is about 80 percent. However, the primary school completion rate (according to available data for 2003) is as low as 25 percent, and grade repetition is high as well. The average GER (gross enrollment ratio) for secondary education for the entire sub-region was 104 percent in 2004. Disparity exists among countries, ranging from 104 percent in Australia to less than 30 percent in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. There is concern over the low enrollment of boys in secondary and tertiary levels in some countries. Gender parity is nearly achieved in Oceania. In 2001/2002, gross enrollment ratio for girls and boys in primary school was 93/100 and in secondary school was 91/ 100 (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Statistics division, 2005). The alarming dropout rates in some countries point to the need for upgrading the quality of education, instituting special programs for older children, and reducing the cost of schooling. Except for a few

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countries, children with disabilities are highly excluded from society across Oceania, and there is almost no provision for the education of children with special needs in the school system. The first decade of the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Person, 1993–2002, did not bring much improvement in raising the status of children with disabilities. Therefore, by resolution 58/4, UNESCAP proclaimed the extension of the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons to another decade, 2003–2012. Public spending on education is high across Oceania, at 7 percent (in GNP) or above in the majority of countries, ranging from 4.3 percent in Samoa to about 12 percent in the Marshall Islands. However, governmental spending on pre-primary education is low, representing between 0.01-0.2 percent of GNP in countries such as Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand (UNESCO 2007). The sub-region also suffers from low external aid to education as compared to South Asia. An increase in external aid may help some countries to reach EFA goals. Many countries in the sub-region have very poor juvenile justice systems. Even amidst recent juvenile justice reform efforts, police violence against children remains very high. Domestic violence against children, especially against women and girls, is rampant across Oceania. New Zealand has a poor record of abuse and neglect of children in comparison with other developed countries. The Micronesian Islands have witnessed extraordinarily high incidences of youth suicide. In 2007, a controversial law, effectively banning parents from striking their children, was passed by New Zealand’s parliament. CONCLUSION Childhood in Asia and Oceania is changing fast. In coming decades, Asia and Oceania will continue to deal with existing and emerging challenges from within and without as well as in overlapping spaces of the global and the local. Differentiated measures will be required to offset the evils of modern technology, such as internet pornography and trafficking, and traditional evils, such as domestic violence, social class/caste division, child labor, underage marriage, harmful health-related beliefs and practices, and other rituals, as well as the negative impact of the global economy on local childhoods. The region will witness more intensive interregional cooperation efforts because of the nature of issues common to the region as well as the need to share effective practices. There will be a greater need to collect qualitative information on the process and quality of schooling rather than quantitative data on enrollment, retention, and dropout rates only. In addition, the growing internal and cross-border conflicts, existing social and economic inequity, and exclusionary practices, as well as moral issues affecting children’s lives will necessitate the inclusion of human

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rights discussions and moral and ethical issues in the school curriculum. The growing awareness of the rights of indigenous children, the widening gap between indigenous and non-indigenous children, and the pressure by international organizations to meet the goals of the second UN International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, 2005–2015, will push governments to divert funding and resources to secure the rights of indigenous children. Based on similar logistics, we can also project that national legislation, strategies, policies, and plans for education in the region will include specific targeting of children with disabilities. Because the majority of the world’s out-of-school girls reside in Asia, and with rising incidences of child prostitution and trafficking involving girls, the governments in Asia will be pressured further by world leaders and organizations to build gender-sensitive and gender-equal societies, to continuously monitor and report progress through gender-disaggregated data, and to facilitate regional dialogues on the issue. Constant criticisms by internal and external evaluators on the region’s poor record of progress, despite legislation, will require governments to institute strict monitoring and evaluation procedures and to upgrade their accountability requirements from individuals and organizations. Governments in Asia and Oceania are obligated to institute rights-based approaches to programming, as required of all UNCRC signatories. Rights-based approaches to programming will focus on budget allocations for children’s programs and services at the local, state, and national levels. Such programming, accompanied with program-evaluation studies, will make children more visible in policies and decision-making processes, especially those related to budget and resource allocation. REFERENCES Aiyar, Mani Shankar. 2007. I was always Leftist. Economic Reforms Made Me Completely Marxist. http://www.indianexpress.com/story/29112.html. Accessed May 2007. Amnesty International. 2005. PAKISTAN: Protection of Juveniles in the Criminal Justice System Remains Inadequate. http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ engasa330212005. Accessed May 12, 2007. Asian Developmental Bank. 2006. Part I—Special Chapter—Measuring Policy Effectiveness in Health and Education: Introduction and Background. http:// www.adb.org/documents/books/key_indicators/2006/pdf/Special-Chapter2006.pdf. Accessed April 20, 2007. Asian Development Bank. 2006. Key indicators 2006: Measuring Policy Effectiveness in Health and Education. http://www.adb.org/documents/books/key_ indi cators/2006/pdf/Special-Chapter-2006.pdf. Accessed February 23, 2007 Bhagwati, Jagdish N. 2004. In Defense of Globalization. New York: Oxford University Press. Bower, Bruce. 2005. Childhood’s End: In Thailand, Poverty Isn’t the Primary Reason that Girls become Prostitutes. Science News Website. http://findarticles.com/ p/articles/mi_m1200/is_13_168/ai_n15722045. Accessed February 23, 2007.

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Callaway, Rhonda L. and Julie Harrelson-Stephens, eds. 2007. Exploring International Human Rights: Essential Readings. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. De, Anuradha and Jean Dreze. 1999. The Public Report on Basic Education in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press. de Onis, Mercedes, Monica Bl€ ossner, Elaine Borghi, Edward Frongillo, and Richard Moris. 2004. Estimates of Global Prevalence of Childhood Underweight in 1990 and 2015. Journal of the American Medical Association, 291, no. 21: 2600–606 Derks, A. 2000. Combating Trafficking in South-East Asia: A Review of Policy and Programme Responses (International Organization for Migration, IMO, Research series). Geneva. Switzerland: IOM. Education Development Center. 2007. EDC Health and Human Development Programs in Asia. http://asia.hhd.org/about.php. Accessed June 12, 2007. Estifania, Edna A. 2004. A Civic Service in East Asia and the Pacific. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 33. no. 12: 127S–147S. Ferguson, Kristin M. 2006. Responding to Children’s Street Work with Alternative Income-Generation Strategies. International Social Work, 49: 705–17. GALDU. 2007. Fundamental Rights of Asia’s Native Peoples Increasingly Violated, Situation Long Neglected, UN Forum Told. http://www.galdu.org/web/ index.php?odas¼2038&giella1¼eng. Accessed May 2, 2007. Giri, Birendra. 2005. Mourning the 15th Anniversary of Crisis: The Plight of Bhutanese Refugee Women and Children. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 40. no. 10: 345–69. Gooneseker, Savitri. 1998. Children, Law and Justice: A South Asian Perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Government Information Office, Republic of China. 2004. A Brief Introduction to Taiwan. http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/brief/info04_15.html. Accessed March 24, 2007. Gragnolati, Michele, Caryn Bredenkamp, Meera Shekar, Monica Das Gupta, and Yi-kyoung Lee. 2006. India’s Undernourished Children: A Call for Reform and Action. Washington DC: World Bank Publications. Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). 2005. Lost children of Central Asia. Underage Prostitution in Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (An IWPR special investigation). http://www.essex.ac.uk/armedcon/story_id/ 000170.doc. Accessed May 10, 2007. The Internet Center for Corruption Research. 2006. Transparency International (TI) 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). http://www.icgg.org/corruption. cpi_2006.html. Accessed April 26, 2007. King, Elizabeth M., and Susana Cordeiro Guerra. 2005. Education Reforms in East Asia: Policy, process, and impact. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ INTEAPDECEN/Resources/Chapter-9.pdf. Accessed December 2006. Lanuza, Gerry. 2004. The Theoretical State of Philippine Youth Studies: Current Trends and Future Directions. Young, 12. no. 1:357–76. Minujin, Alberto, and Enrique Delamonica. 2003. Mind the gap! Widening child mortality disparities. Journal of Human Development, 4. no. 3: 397–418. Minujin, Alberto, Enrique Delamonica, Alejandra Davidziuk, and Edward D. Gonzalez. 2006. The Definition of Child Poverty: A Discussion of Concepts and Measurements. Environment and Urbanization, 18, no. 10: 481–500. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 2006. Gender, Institutions, and Development Index. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/ 20/36240233.pdf. Accessed May 12, 2007.

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Pattnaik, Jyotsna, ed. 2005. Childhood in South Asia. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Reynolds, Pamela, Olga Nieuwenhuys, and Karl Hanson. 2006. Refractions of Children’s Rights in Development Practice: A view from anthropology– Introduction. Childhood, 13. no. 8: 291–302. Roby, Jini L. 2005. Women and Children in the Global Sex Trade: Toward more Effective Policy. International Social Work, 48. no. 3:136–47. Salmon, Claire. 2005. Child Labor in Bangladesh: Are Children the Last Economic Resource of the Household? Journal of Developing Societies, 21. no. 6:33–54. Seabrook, Jeremy. 2001. Children of Other Worlds: Exploitation in the Global Market. London: Pluto Press. Sen, Amrtya. 2002. Health: Perception versus Observation. British Medical Journal. 324:860–861. Smith, Lisa C. and Lawrence Haddad. 2000. Overcoming Child Malnutrition in Developing Countries: Past Achievements and Future Choices. http://www. ifpri.org/2020/briefs/number64.htm. Retrieved April 20, 2007. Stark, Barbara. 2006. International Family Law: An Introduction. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing. UNAIDS (2005). AIDS Epidemic Update: December 2005, Oceania http:// www.unaids.org/epi/2005/doc/EPIupdate2005_pdf_en/Epi05_12_en.pdf Accessed June 10, 2007. UNA-USA. 2007. Easing Their Plight. http://www.unausa.org/atf/cf/ percent 7B49C555AC-20C8-4B43-8483-A2D4C1808E4E percent7D/Spr percent 2007 percent20ID percent20pp percent2013-25.pdf UNDP. 2006. Human Development Index. http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/ flash/statistics_trends.cfm. Accessed February 12, 2007. UNDP. 2006. Human Development Report. http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/ background-docs/Issue_Notes/Unicef.pdf. Accessed May 17, 2007. UNDP. 2006. How HDI relates to GDP. http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/ flash/statistics_hdi.cfm. Accessed April 12, 2007. UNDP. 2006. Human Development Report. 2006 HDI Ranking. http://hdr.undp. org/hdr2006/statistics/. Accessed May 23, 2007. UNESCO. 2000. Gains, Losses in Education for All in Asia and the Pacific. http:// www.unesco.org/education/efa/wef_2000/press_releases/bangk_12_01.shtml. Accessed January 2007. UNESCO. 2006. EFA Global Monitoring Report: Regional Overview: South and West Asia. http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID¼49642&URL_ DO¼DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION¼201.html. Accessed May 10, 2007. UNICEF. 2003. UNICEF urges Demobilization and Reintegration of Child Soldiers. http://www.unicef.org/newsline/02pr58soldiers.htm. Accessed June 10, 2007. UNICEF. 2003. The State of the World’s Children, 2003. Washington, DC: United Nations. UNICEF. 2004. Gender Achievement and Prospect in Education. The GAP report: Part one. http://www.ungei.org/gap/reportPacific.php. Accessed March 10, 2007. UNICEF. 2006. Progress for Children: East Asia/Pacific: China Leads the Way. http://www.unicef.org/progressforchildren/2006n4/index_eastasiapacific.html. Accessed May, 10, 2007.

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UNICEF. 2003. UNICEF Report Finds Child Survival Crisis in Caucasus and Central Asia. http://www.unicef-icdc.org/presscentre/presskit/sm2003/sm03_ pr_en.pdf. Accessed March 19, 2007. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). 2007. Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2007. http://www.unescap.org/survey2007/. Accessed April 20, 2007. van Heeswijk, Jan P. M., ed. 2004. Combating Trafficking of Women and Children in South Asia: Regional Synthesis Paper for Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. Chicago: Asian Development Bank. White, Ronald and Paul Smoke. 2005. East Asia Decentralizes. http://siteresources. worldbank.org/INTEAPDECEN/Resources/Chapter-1.pdf. Accessed December 18, 2006. World Health Organization. 2007. HIV-AIDS in the Southeast Asia region. http:// www.searo.who.int/LinkFiles/AIDS_SEARO-Report07.pdf. Accessed June 10, 2007.

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AUSTRALIA Merlyne Cruz, Glenda MacNaughton, and Sharne Rolfe NATIONAL PROFILE Australia is a federation of six state and two territory governments with three tiers of government—commonwealth, state, and local government. It has a parliamentary democracy that draws from British and North American models of liberal democracy. Australia has a population of approximately 20 million people of whom 3.9 million are children (birth to fourteen years of age) (ABS 2003), with 78 percent of Australia’s child population living in its three most populated states: New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland (AIHW 2005). Sixtyfour percent of children live in major cities. Children living in remote areas account for only 3 percent of the total child population, and the majority of those children (51 percent) live in the Northern Territory. The Australian population is ethnically and culturally diverse with peoples from an Oceanic, North-West European, Southern and Eastern European, and North African and Middle Eastern ancestry, with almost one-quarter of the population born overseas.

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Around 40 percent of Australia’s culturally and ethnically diverse population is made up of first- or second-generation migrants, mostly from Europe, New Zealand, and Asia. Australia is ranked thirty-second in the world in the numbers of refugees it takes in, averaging 12,000 refugees a year. While Australia is culturally and ethnically diverse, the Anglo-Celtic population makes up almost 80 percent of the population, and English is the most widely spoken language. The three most common languages other than English spoken at home in 2001 were Chinese languages, Italian, and Greek (ABS 2001). Australia also has an indigenous population that constitutes approximately 2 percent of the population. However, indigenous children form 4 percent of the total child population, with one-third of all indigenous children living in New South Wales, 28 percent in Queensland and 11 percent in the Northern Territory. A total of 5.8 percent of the child population was born overseas (ABS 2001). Australia is a relatively wealthy county. In 2006, it had the eight highest standards of living in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, and an average per capita income per gross domestic product (GDP) of 30,897 in 2005. This placed it fourteenth in the world in the International Monetary Fund’s rankings. It has had an average growth of 3.5 percent in its economy over the past ten years. Its GDP is predicted to reach a trillion dollars in 2006– 2007 for the first time in its hisKEY FACTS – AUSTRALIA tory. In 2006, its employment Population: 20,434,176 (July 2007 est.) rate sat around 5 percent with Infant mortality rate: 4.57 deaths/1,000 live births (2007 est.) approximately equal rates of Life expectancy at birth: 80.62 years (2007 est.) unemployment for man and Literacy rate (age fifteen and over): 99 percent women. Net primary school enrollment/attendance: 96 percent (2000–2005) Most people in Australia (87 Internet users: 14.664 million (2006) percent) live in a family with 60 People living with HIV/AIDS: 14,000 (2003 est.) percent of all families including Human Poverty Index (HPI-2) Rank: 14 children. In 2003, there were Sources: CIA World Factbook: Australia. https://www.cia.gov/cia/ 5.5 million families in Australia. publications/factbook/geos/as.html. April 17, 2007; UNICEF. A majority of those families Australia at a Glance–Statistics. http://www.unicef.org/ were in a one-family household infobycountry/australia.html. April 26, 2007; United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report averaging 3.1 people in size. 2006–Australia. http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/ Only 4 percent of Australians countries/data_sheets/cty_ds_AUS.html. April 26, 2007. live in multifamily households. OVERVIEW While Australia is a relatively wealthy country and children on the whole are very healthy, children’s life chances vary according to socioeconomic and racial background and geographical location. Major issues confront the

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well-being of indigenous Australian children, particularly in rural and remote areas of Australia. In recent times, there has been a focus on the effects of homelessness on children’s health and well-being and increasing concern with children as victims of domestic violence. These issues are emerging in a wider context of rapid social change and the specific ways in which this is affecting children. Specific issues in relation to education, health, and children’s rights are outlined in the sections that follow. EDUCATION Education is the responsibility of state and territory governments in Australia. There are differences in the formal starting age for school between the states and territory governments, but since 1930 schooling between the ages of six and fifteen has been compulsory throughout the country. School education consists of thirteen years generally divided into a one-year preparatory year, six or seven years of primary schooling, and up to six years of secondary schooling. Now, 98 percent of all children complete a full course of primary education in Australia, and 96 percent of all children enroll in secondary school. Australia’s schooling system consists of private, nongovernmental schools and government schools. Churches are involved in the provision of schools. Approximately 30 percent of children attend nongovernment schools associated with religious organizations (Christian Research Association 2006). Religious schools in Australia have both a religious and a social mission. The formal language of education is English, but many schools offer programs for students to study other languages. There are some bilingual schools and preschools. All states and territories provide specialist programs for children with disabilities, and efforts are being made to address the specific needs of indigenous students within the government school system. All states and territories have a curriculum framework based on key learning areas and outcomes for each level of schooling. The National Goals for Schooling in the 21st Century focus on improving learning outcomes and provide a framework for national reporting on student achievement. In line with these goals, the Australian government instituted a nationally comparable system of reporting student achievement at years three, five, and seven of schooling. Literacy and numeracy outcomes are now reported in a National Report on Schooling annually. Assessment processes in addition to these national reports differ from state to state but involve a combination of school-based assessment and some state or territory-wide assessment in the final year of schooling. Since 2006, all schools have been required to provide parents with individual student report cards that show student achievement relative to the achievement of other students. Though it is not compulsory, a majority of Australian children receive some form of preschool education. In Australia, play has been an integral part of the early childhood curriculum. Challenges to the traditional notion

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of the value of play have multiplied in recent years. The development of early childhood policies in relation to the needs of parents, workplace, and economy and the emphasis on raising the standards of literacy and numeracy of Australian schoolchildren are seen as potential contributing factors in devaluing play. In particular, the OECD argues for a curriculum that integrates the best traditions of preschool and primary education and focuses on children’s cognitive, socio-emotional, and physical development. PLAY AND RECREATION Australia places a higher value on leisure activities than many societies. The 2003 Survey of Children’s Participation in Culture and Leisure Activities (Australian Bureau of Statistics) estimates that in the twelve months prior to April 2003: .

. . .

Almost all children (99.8 percent) participated in at least one of the selected leisure activities surveyed; most frequent were watching television or videos, reading for pleasure, and playing electronic or computer games. 62 percent participated in organized sport. 29 percent were involved in selected organized cultural activities. 29 percent did not participate in organized sport or selected organized cultural activities.

As well as formally organized activities, children take part in a range of leisure activities. The most common leisure activity was watching television or videos (97 percent of children aged five to fourteen years), playing electronic or computer games, and bike riding. Some of the Australian television shows enjoyed by most preschool children are Play School, The Wiggles, Bananas in Pajamas, and Hi-Five. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s share of children’s audiences is particularly high among children in the four- to twelve-year age group. Walking and bike riding are two of the most popular family active leisure pursuits. Favorite family recreational activities are generally passive or nonactive, and tend to occur in the home. Television and video watching are favorite family pastime activities. Australian Bureau of Statistics 2003 surveys on recreation patterns indicate that Australian children devote inordinate amounts of time to technology, causing concern over isolation and detachment from social interaction and communication. Other negative consequences linked to the increased use of entertainment technology (such as computers, television, the internet, mobile phones, CD players, and electronic games) include the following: . .

Further segregation of the lives of children and parents Reduction of time spent by children in imaginative play; focus on mechanical, solitary play

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Exposure to violence and graphic sex Children being targeted as consumers of technology themselves Less time for physical activity that contributes to the dramatic rise of obesity and overweight problems among Australian children

Article 31 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child provides the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child, and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts. As Australia is signatory to the Convention, it has a responsibility to actively pursue the right of the child for play and recreation in legislation, policy, and practice. The government recognizes the profound detrimental effects of limited independent exploration and physical activity on children’s total development. In June 2004, ‘‘The Building a Healthy, Active Australia’’ initiative was launched to address the growing problem of declining physical activity and poor eating habits of Australian children. The initiative consists of four key components: Healthy School Communities, Healthy Eating and Regular Physical Activity—Information for Families, Active After-School Communities, and Active School Curriculum. The Australian Department of Health and Aging (2005) has recommended the adoption of the following guidelines: .

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All children and youth should be physically active daily, as part of play, games, sports, work, transportation, recreation, physical education, or planned exercise, in the context of family, school, and community activities. All children and youth should engage in physical activity of at least moderate intensity for sixty minutes or more on a daily basis. Children and youth should avoid extended periods of inactivity through activities such as television watching, video, computer games, and surfing the internet. Children and youth who currently do little activity should participate in physical activity of at least moderate intensity for at least thirty minutes daily, building up to sixty minutes daily.

The Department endorses the utility of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) guidelines for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. The most popular organized sport for boys (in the year ending April 2003) was outdoor soccer, swimming, and Australian Rules football. For girls, netball, swimming, and tennis were predominant. Bike riding, skateboarding, and roller-blading rank high as favorite non-organized sport activities. Junior sport in Australia has different paths for young people, including school-related sports, local clubs or national sporting organizations. Some sports have talent identification programs across the country. The

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Australian Institute of Sport and some state and territory institutes and academies of sport also conduct talent identification programs that aim to recognize and tap into the potential that young people display for specific activities. In addition, school sport is an integral part of the Australian education system. Sport, including health and physical education, is one of the eight key learning areas in school curriculum. CHILD LABOR In Australia, the rights of workers of any age and legal requirements pertaining to employment are addressed in legislation at both federal and state/territory levels. Although Australia is a democratic, developed, and unionized nation with a relatively high standard of living, there are no federal laws setting a minimum age for employment or prohibiting forced or bonded labor by children. State and territory laws indirectly regulate the employment of children through laws setting minimum ages for leaving compulsory education (fifteen years), claiming unemployment benefits, and entering particular occupations. This means children can be employed full-time in a job at the age of fifteen. To work full-time before the age of fifteen, children must be exempted from school by the Department of Education and Training and be granted a permit by the Secretary of the Department of Human Services. But these provisions do not prevent the exploitation of children. Research by the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia in 1995 uncovered examples of child labor, including young children working on industrial sewing machines after school, until late at night, and for twelve-hour shifts on weekends and during school holidays in home-based outwork within the clothing and textile industry. General occupational health and safety legislation in Australia does not specifically consider the special needs of children in workplaces due to their particular anatomical, physiological or psychological characteristics. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has repeatedly criticized Australian labor laws for falling short of international core labor standards and has regularly reviewed child labor laws across world regions (for example, ILO 2006). Regarding child labor specifically, Australia is one of only 20 out of 177 ILO member countries that have not yet ratified ILO Convention 138 establishing a minimum age for employment or ILO Convention 182 on the worst forms of child Labor. Australia does have laws against slavery and sexual servitude—the Criminal Code Amendment (Slavery and Sexual Servitude) Act of 1999—with those found guilty of perpetrating conditions of slavery facing penalties of up to twenty-five years’ imprisonment. Forcing, or intending to force, a child under eighteen years to provide sexual services or having knowledge of such activity warrants a penalty of nineteen years’ imprisonment.

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From January 27, 2006, the Department of Families, Community Services and indigenous Affairs is responsible for social policies and support affecting Australian society and the living standards of Australian families and the Office of indigenous Policy Coordination (OIPC). Various reports detail examples of exploitative child labor in Australia and/or injuries sustained by children at work. One of the more extensive of these recent reports, submitted by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL–CIO) in 2003, reported that: .

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Approximately 450 children across Australia every day are believed to be engaged in commercial or quasi-commercial sexual activity (Grant, Grabosky, and David 1999) In 1999–2000, a total of 29,000 young people aged fifteen to nineteen years experienced work-related injury (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2000) Over a two-year period to December 2001, there were 21,000 workrelated problems in persons under fifteen years (National Occupational Health and Safety Commission 2001)

Newspapers have presented even more graphic statistics, including deaths of children involved in farm work (Sydney Morning Herald, November 4, 2000) and burns, fractures, and amputations in the teenaged work force (The Herald Sun, January 25, 2002). As just one example of state-level initiatives in this area, in 2003, the Victorian Government enacted the Child Employment Act 2003, which aims to protect the health, safety, and moral welfare of children under fifteen years of age who are working in Victoria. Before then, child employment in Victoria was regulated by provisions in the Community Services Act 1970, and this Act had not been substantively amended in thirty years. The new act recognizes that working children have particular needs and rights and establishes conditions that must be met before someone can employ children. Although the new act retained the child employment permit system that existed under the Community Services Act for the employment of children under fifteen, family businesses no longer require a permit to employ children, Child Employment Permits are free of charge, and parents are responsible for applying for permits. There is also a new mandatory requirement for a police check of the criminal record of those people employing and directly supervising children in the workplace. FAMILY Most children in Australia live at home with their families. Families with children make up 60 percent of all families in Australia. In 2003, there were 2.5 million families with at least one child younger than

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eighteen years old, and the majority of these (1.8 million or 71 percent) were from intact couple families, 22 percent (542,600) were from oneparent families, and 176,700 were from stepfamilies or blended families. As a proportion of all families with children under eighteen years, oneparent families are increasing (from 17 percent in 1992 to 22 percent in 2003), with most being single-mother families. In 2003, just over 1 million children under eighteen years lived with one parent and had a birth parent living elsewhere, mainly due to separation and divorce. This represented 22 percent of children in this age group, a similar proportion to that in 1997 (ABS Document 4102.0 Australian Social Trends 2006). Most Australian families live as one-family households, with only 4 percent of families living in multi-family households. The average size of Australian family households is decreasing, from 3.3 persons in 1992 to 3.1 persons in 2003. While the extended family is very important in Australian family life, many Australian families live long distances from their relatives, or as recently arrived immigrants, may have few if any extended family in Australia. This, accompanied with the increase in single-parent families, means that many Australian families rely on informal friendship networks or formal services such as child care and after-school care to assist them with their parental responsibilities. Use of informal care (nonregulated child care, including care by friends, extended family, or babysitters) is most common, especially for infants, but the proportion of children in formal care has also increased, from 19 percent in 1993 to 25 percent in 2002. While grandparent families with children under the age of eighteen years represented only 1 percent (22,500) of all families with dependent children in 2003, grandparents provided 58 percent of informal care to children aged younger than twelve years. Children living in low-income families are more likely to be from single-parent families, indigenous families, some families of non-English speaking backgrounds, and rural or remote families. The extent of family and child homelessness in Australia has been a contentious issue for many years, and it is very difficult to estimate the number of homeless children in Australia. However, most statistics indicate a significant increase in youth homelessness since 1991. Women’s participation in the labor force is increasing in Australia and in 2001, around 43 percent (867,700) of all families with children aged less than fifteen years were couple families where both parents were employed. The proportion of traditional ‘‘sole breadwinner’’ families is decreasing in Australian society. This, and the increase in one-parent families, means that a growing proportion of Australian families face particular challenges combining family and paid work responsibilities. ‘‘Family friendly’’ arrangements (including parental leave or flexible working hours) are available in some workplaces, and part-time work is the most common form of employment for most women up until their youngest

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child reaches early high school age. Reflecting these patterns, work is the most commonly cited reason for using childcare. However, personal reasons, such as to undertake study, to go shopping, or to give parents a break or time alone, are also commonly given, especially for children receiving informal care. Family life for indigenous children is different in many respects from that of non-indigenous children. In terms of family type, as just one example, in 1994 nearly 13 percent of indigenous people lived in households shared by two or more families compared with 2 percent of the non-indigenous population. Only 64.1 percent of indigenous young people aged fifteen to nineteen lived with a parent, although there has been a growing trend in Australia generally for young people to continue to live with their parents for longer periods of their childhood. Marriage rates (per 1,000 of unmarried population) have fallen over the last two decades, and in 2003 there were 106,400 marriages registered in Australia. Marriage data for 2003 confirms the thirty-year trend for more Australian couples to cohabit prior to entering a registered marriage. Over the last ten years, the proportion of divorces involving children under eighteen years has fallen slightly from 53 percent in 1993 to 50 percent in 2003. The actual number of children involved in divorce in 2003 was 49,900. Of these divorces involving children, the age of the youngest child was between zero to four years of age for 26 percent of divorces, five to nine years of age for 36 percent of divorces, and ten to seventeen years for 38 percent of divorces. The proportion of divorces involving children varies between states and territories according to the 2004 Australian Bureau of Statistics. Parents have the legal obligation to provide for their children’s needs—provision of food, shelter and clothing, education and protection—until they are eighteen years of age, and parents have the right to decide what is in their child’s best interests. Only recently have children in Australian courts been able to enter into a direct relationship with their legal representatives, rather than having another adult, usually the parent, acting as go-between child and lawyer, and this has only occurred in some jurisdictions. Parental powers stop completely (along with their legal responsibility toward their children) when a young person attains eighteen years of age. Parental responsibility also ceases when a child marries or is in a de facto relationship. In all states and territories of Australia, the age of majority is eighteen. Under the Federal Marriage Act 1961, the legal minimum age for marriage is eighteen years. However, with court approval in exceptional circumstances, a marriage may take place if one of the parties has attained sixteen years. In Australia, children have rights of inheritance from their parents in all states/territories whether their parents are married or not. If a parent dies without making adequate provision for a child, an application can be made to the courts for child maintenance from the estate.

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Family violence is a serious social issue in Australia, and the Family Violence Committee was established by the Family Court of Australia in 2002 to review all court polices and practices in relation to family violence. A major consultation was conducted resulting in the Family Violence Strategy launched in March 2004. The court also must ensure that any orders made are consistent with any family violence order and do not expose a person to an unacceptable risk of family violence. The family court program seeks to promote justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the jurisdiction of family law and to assist the court in adapting its processes and operations to accommodate the specific needs of indigenous families in conflict on issues of children, family breakdown, and separation. There is a range of government payments—most means-tested—made to Australian families to assist them in caring for their children, including benefits paid through the taxation system, the Child Care Benefit to help families who use approved and registered child care, the Large Family Supplement, Maternity Payment, Maternity Immunisation Allowance and rent assistance. Child support for children of divorce is paid by one parent to the other based on residency of the children and is collected and administered through the Child Support Scheme. HEALTH Australia’s infant mortality rate was 4.57 per 1,000 live births in 2007. The major causes of infant mortality include perinatal conditions (50 percent) and congenital malformations, deformations, and chromosomal abnormalities (23 percent). Nearly 17 percent of postneonatal deaths are associated with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The infant mortality rate for indigenous Australian infants is three times higher than for the general population, and it is generally higher for infants in rural and remote areas than for infants in metropolitan areas. Forty-seven percent of all deaths of children one to fourteen years of age occur in the early childhood years (one to four years of age), with the major external causes, such as injury or poisoning, accounting for 40 percent of these deaths. Again, there are differentials in the death rate between indigenous and non-indigenous children. In the age groups one to four years of age and ten to fourteen years of age, indigenous children are three time more likely to die than non-indigenous children. In 2003, approximately 8 percent of the child population (zero to fourteen years of age) had a disability, with more than half of these children deemed to have a severe disability, and the 2001 population census suggests that approximately 7 percent of the child population has a longterm mental health problem or disorder. In all states, there are private and not-for-profit organizations that offer private health services and public services that receive state government assistance that can provide

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support and assistance to children, youth, and families where a child has a disability or mental health problem. For most low-income families, it is possible to access public services free of charge if their local health practitioners are prepared to charge the recommended government fee for their services. However, not all practitioners will do this. Although the number of reported AIDS deaths peaked in Australia in 1985, by the end of 2005, thirty-four Australian children between the age of one and twelve had died of the disease. As there is no mandated sex education in Australian schools, discussion on HIV-related issues is ad hoc, and controversy surrounds the inclusion of issues related to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) youth in school-based sex education classes. There are several ways in which children and youth can access counseling services in relation to pregnancy, sexuality, HIV/AIDS, and related personal relationship and health issues. There are several nongovernment counseling services available to youth on pregnancy and related issues, including HIV/AIDS, and several telephone hotlines such as the AIDS hotline, Abortion Grief Counselling, Online Kids Counselling, and Gay and Lesbian Switchboard Counselling services. In addition, most state governments have an online health information directory that provides information about government and nongovernment counseling and health services that are available within their state. One of the issues faced by families, youth, and children is the potential confusion their diversity can create about where to go for help. LAWS AND LEGAL STATUS Australia was one of the first countries to ratify the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). It became binding on the Australian government on January 14, 1991, and is incorporated in federal law as part of the human rights responsibilities of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Australia’s National Framework for Human Rights: National Action Plan (NAP) launched in December 2004 (available at http://www.dfat.gov.au/hr/nap/nap_2004.pdf). This document details many areas in which the policies and laws of Australia address children’s rights. These include Federal Parliament legislation that makes unfair discrimination on the basis of age unlawful; the development of integrated policy and programs to strengthen families and prevent child maltreatment; income support and policy for those caring for children; a national child care policy; and the Family Law Act 1975, which prioritizes a child’s best interests in family law decisions. The NAP also draws attention to the new position, created in 2002, of Minister for Children and Youth Affairs to promote an integrated approach across the spectrum of Australian government policies and programs for children and young people.

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The Australian government has reported twice on its performance of obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (December 1995 and September 2003). In addition, the Australian Law Reform Commission and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in 1997 produced Seen and Heard: Priority for Children in the Legal Process and the National Children’s and Youth Law Centre (NCYLC) in 2004 produced What’s up CROC? Australia’s Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child raising concerns about Australia’s record in regard to children’s rights. Established in 1975, the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) is a permanent, independent federal statutory corporation, operating under the Australian Law Reform Commission Act 1996 (Cth). The NCYLC is an independent, nonprofit community legal center established in 1993, which advocates the legal rights and responsibilities of children and youth. These major reports raised many serious concerns about the legal status of children in Australia and Australian laws pertaining to children. For example, the NCYLC report notes that under Australian law, the fundamental civil liberties described in Articles 2, 13, 14, 15, and 16 of CROC, with the exception of the nondiscrimination provision in Article 2, are not guaranteed. While decisions affecting children are made daily by federal, state/territory, and local government agencies, it is rare for children to be consulted in these processes. There are legal restrictions on those younger than eighteen years old entering into contracts, thus disadvantaging children by precluding them from entering tenancy agreements or mobile phone contracts unless someone over the age of eighteen years is willing to sign their contract or go guarantor. Australian children have no right of participation in school decision-making, and under section 40 of the Victorian Equal Opportunity Act (1995), schools are allowed to set and enforce reasonable standards of dress and appearance even if these discriminate on the grounds of sex, race, or cultural background. Australian children suffer discrimination in relation to minimum and junior wage rates under industrial laws and workplace agreements that are not subject to antidiscrimination legislation. It has been estimated that about one-third of all crime in Australia is committed by juveniles, costing the community an estimated $1.5 billion a year. In Australia, juvenile offenders under the age of seventeen years are generally incarcerated in youth detention or training centers but can be sentenced to custody in an adult prison if convicted of a serious criminal offense, such as homicide. Data indicate there has been a general decline in the number of persons aged ten to seventeen years in juvenile detention over past years. On June 30, 1981, 1,352 young people were detained in juvenile detention facilities, whereas on June 30, 2003, only 640 juveniles were recorded as detained. Indigenous status is only available from 1994, but the rates of detention for both indigenous and nonindigenous young people have been declining since then. In 2003,

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Aboriginal juveniles accounted for 47 percent of those between the ages of ten to seventeen years in juvenile correctional institutions (U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices–2005, March 8, 2006). Indigenous children and their families are the most disadvantaged group in contemporary Australian society and continue to experience inequality in access to services and benefits compared with non-indigenous Australians, with these inequities being widely recognized contributing factors to the extent of criminal offending. In terms of gender, young men have always been highly overrepresented in juvenile detention, with young women consistently comprising only a small proportion of the total persons detained. On June 30, 2004, young males were twelve times more likely than young females to be in detention. There have been reports of children in juvenile justice centers being subjected to abuse and inadequate safeguards established in law and policy to protect them. Figures from South Australia (Government of South Australia, Office of Crime Statistics, Fact Sheet No. 1, December 2000) provide some insights into the types of offenses for which young people are apprehended. In 1999, larceny and receiving (mainly shoplifting and theft of motor vehicles) was the major offenses (30.3 percent), followed by good order offenses (16.4 percent); burglary, break and enter (12.2 percent); drug offenses, mainly possession and use of cannabis (10.7 percent); offenses against the person, excluding sexual offences (10.2 percent); and damage to property and environmental offenses (10 percent). Robbery and extortion (2.1 percent), fraud and misappropriation (0.9 percent) and sexual offenses (0.7 percent) were rare. Two SA apprehension reports in 1999 listed murder as the major offense, with three reports of attempted murder. Recent research into the lifetime offending and substance use patterns of 371 juveniles incarcerated in Australian juvenile justice centers has shown that young people sentenced to detention often have extensive offending and drug use histories. The research showed that almost all juvenile detainees had used alcohol (97 percent) and cannabis (94 percent), half had used amphetamines, and one-third had used ecstasy and nearly one in three juvenile offenders were regular polysubstance users in the months prior to detention (Australian Institute of Criminology, Crime Facts Information Sheet No. 111: Drug use by young serious offenders, November 22, 2005). Another major concern in recent years is the forced detention of children and their families in immigration detention centers. Australia is the only Western country that has a policy of mandatory detention of all ‘‘unauthorized arrivals,’’ including children. In February 2002, there were 365 children in mainland Australian immigration detention centers, including thirteen unaccompanied minors. Children in Australian immigration detention centers do not enjoy the same rights under the Convention as those outside of detention. Australia penalizes asylum-seeking

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‘‘unauthorized arrival’’ children by detaining them for long periods of time, which further exacerbates their vulnerability and development. In July 2005, all children were released from indefinite detention and the Migration Act was amended to say that detention of children is an action of last resort. In regard to child trafficking, the Criminal Code Amendment (Trafficking in Persons Offences) Bill became law on August 3, 2005. Criminal offenses include general trafficking (bringing a person to Australia by means of threats, force or deception) punishable by up to twelve years imprisonment, or twenty years if the offender intends that the victim will be exploited, or the victim is subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. The legislation also includes the specific offence of trafficking in children, with penalties of up to twenty years. Consistent with the Protocol, it is not necessary to prove the offender used force or threats, and the consent of the child is not relevant (http://www.dfat.gov.au/illegal_ immigration/laws.html). As noted earlier, under the Criminal Code Amendment (Slavery and Sexual Servitude) Act of 1999, those found guilty of forcing, or intending to force a child under eighteen years to provide sexual services or having knowledge of such activity warrants a penalty of nineteen years imprisonment. The Criminal Code Act also mandates a penalty of ten years for use of a carriage service (such as the internet) to access, obtain, or distribute child pornography (http://www.aba.gov.au/internet/overview/pornography. shtml). In addition, ISP or Web hosts also face monetary penalties if they are made aware that their service can be used to access child pornography, and they do not refer the information to the federal police. Corporal punishment in schools is banned in all Australian states, although in Queensland, this is still not legally binding. As a result, teachers can defend a charge of criminal assault if their conduct is considered ‘‘reasonable under the circumstances,’’ falling back on a Queensland law on Domestic Punishment dating back to 1899. Whether parents should be allowed to smack their children is a controversial issue, and appears to be still supported by a majority of Australians. For example, Tucci, Saunders, and Goddard (2002, cited in Australian Psychological Society, InPsych Highlights, October, 2002), reported that 75 percent of Victorians (as opposed to 88 percent of British respondents) agreed that: ‘‘Parents should be allowed by law to smack a naughty child who is over five years old,’’ with figures dropping to 50 percent and 16 percent respectively for ages two to five and below two years. The legal working age for children in Australia is fifteen years, and the ADF observes a minimum recruitment age into the armed forces of seventeen years. In regard to the age of criminal responsibility, since the publication of The Age of Criminal Responsibility (Urbas 2000, as cited in Australian Institute of Criminology Crime Facts Sheet No. 106, The age of criminal responsibility, September 13, 2005), some Australian

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jurisdictions have revised their legislation, confirming a trend over the last twenty years toward uniformity in age limits for criminal responsibility. For example, from July 1, 2005, in Victoria, the age jurisdiction of the criminal division of the Children’s Court has increased from seventeen to eighteen years. In Queensland, per the 1992 Juvenile Justice Act, a child is a person who has not turned seventeen years. Doli incapax means a presumption that a child is ‘‘incapable of crime’’ under legislation or common law. Recent Australian reviews (Bradley 2003 and Crofts 2003, as cited in Australian Institute of Criminology Crime Facts Sheet No. 106, The age of criminal responsibility, September 13, 2005) have discussed amending the doli incapax presumption, including reversing the onus of proof and changing its application to ages twelve and under. RELIGIOUS LIFE There is no official religion in Australia. The Constitution allows all Australians to follow any religion they choose or to have no religion. Religious practice, however, must conform to Australian laws. The Australian Constitution does not define religious minorities. There are no specific provisions in the Australian Constitution to protect human rights. Australia’s human rights obligations are largely derived from Australia’s international obligations under the various human rights treaties. It is arguable that Section 116 of the Constitution allows the free exercise of any religion and protects religious minorities (and majorities) from discrimination, but this section is more about restrictions on the powers of the legislature than a Constitutional guarantee of rights of individuals. Religious faith has been a vital part of Australian life since the early European settlement. Prior to that, the Aboriginal inhabitants followed their religions involving beliefs in spiritual forces and interrelationships between human beings, nature, and deities. Faith traditions have been influential in the formation of Australian multicultural society and have contributed immensely in the formation of Australian values. In Australia, the family remains the primary agent of a child’s religious development. There are also ties between religious institutions and family life. For newly arrived immigrants, participation in familiar religious observances and rituals in Australia operates as an integrating and connecting force. In some immigrant communities, religious institutions have played an important role in people’s spiritual, social, psychological, and cultural needs. The Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001 Census identified affiliations as follows: 70 percent Christians of different denominations and 5 percent non-Christian religions. Extensive immigration from the Middle East and Southeast Asia has increased the ethnic diversity of existing Christian denominations. It has also expanded Buddhist (now the largest nonChristian religion in Australia) and Muslim numbers significantly. The rise

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of new spiritualities alongside ethnically diverse traditional Christian denomination and the increase of people claiming no religious affiliation (16.5 percent) are shaping Australia to become, paradoxically, both a more secular and more multi-faith society. Australia also faces the challenges of continuing the traditions of Christian faith and of combining the need for community with strongly individualistic attitudes and behavior. More recently, a proliferation of full-time schools sponsored by ethnic and religious communities has occurred, some motivated by religious faith, others by concerns for cultural and linguistic maintenance. Examples of these are Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Jewish, Turkish Muslim, and Coptic Orthodox schools. There are several early childhood centers with a spiritual orientation. Steiner preschools, for example, aim to awaken the child’s ‘‘natural reverence for the wonder of life.’’ Jewish early learning centers in New South Wales and Brisbane introduce children to Jewish values and traditions and aim to develop caring members of the Jewish community and Australian society. Schools with a religious affiliation are a significant feature of the Australian educational system, and religious groups have played a major role in supporting the establishment and growth of nongovernment schools. For example, Australia has a significant sector of systemic Catholic schools, which enrolls about 20 percent of the school-age population. The Salvation Army and Uniting Care provide community services in the areas of aged and community care, children, youth and family, disability, employment, and rural and remote communities The 1959 Convention on the Rights of the Child requires Australia to protect children’s rights to cultural identity, language, and religion. Every child staying in Australia, whether citizen, temporary resident, or refugee seeking asylum, has the right to profess and practice his/her religion. In Australia, most religious denominations use communal centers and places of worship that hold spiritual significance for their believers. There are many Aboriginal sacred sites, which are generally places in the landscape. Religious activities and ritual ceremonies encompass a range of activities, including eating religiously appropriate food; baptism; fasting; prayer; religious meditation; religious text; visiting a burial site; worshipping at a sacred place; going to a wedding, funeral, confirmation, coming of age or rite of passage ceremonies; and other religious initiations. Rites of passage for children practiced by different religious groups include baptism, first communion/first confession for Christians, circumcision and bar mitzvah/bat mitzvah for Jews, and upanayana (‘‘sacred thread ceremony’’) for male Hindu children. Some Australian Aboriginal rites of passage include tooth pulling for males and food taboos for girls. The emergence of an era of terrorism has triggered debates on the contribution of religion and religious schools to cultural diversity and social cohesion. The role of education in promoting interfaith understanding in

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Australia is recognized as essential to a culture of harmony, justice, and nonviolence. Australians schools adopt the National Framework for Values Education that gives emphasis to freedom, respect, integrity, tolerance, and inclusion. Results from the 2004 National Church Life Study indicate that Australians are united in affirming these values. CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT In Australia, the term child maltreatment includes four types of abuse: physical, sexual, emotional/psychological, and neglect. The total number of Australian children who have experienced maltreatment cannot be accurately known, with the best approximations based on the number of reports of suspected child abuse made to statutory child protection authorities. In Australia, this statutory responsibility resides with state and territory governments—not federal government—and there is inconsistency between the states in definitions of abuse, mandatory reporting requirements and processes, and child protection legislation. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) in 2002–2003, there were 198,355 reports received by state or territory authorities of suspected child maltreatment, and of these, about one in five (40,416) were substantiated through subsequent protective services investigations. These figures underestimate the extent of the problem, as much child maltreatment is not reported. In Australia, any person can report in confidence to protection authorities if they believe a child is being maltreated, and certain professional groups are required by law (mandated) to make such reports. This varies from state to state. In Tasmania, for example, every adult is mandated, whereas in Victoria, police, doctors, nurses, and teachers only are mandated. Recent AIHW statistics reveal that school personnel, police, and parents/guardians are those who most commonly report. Other available statistics indicate that boys are more likely than girls to be physically abused, whereas girls are more likely to be sexually abused. Australia’s indigenous children (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders) are more likely to be the subject of a substantiated report, and in one state (Victoria), this rate is ten times that of non-indigenous children. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are also overrepresented among children who have been removed from their homes due to child maltreatment, constituting in 2002, 23 percent of all children in care (of a total of 20,297 in care in 2002–2003). Most children removed from their homes are placed in community, home-based foster care placements (92 percent), with very few children (5 percent) placed in residential-type care (that is, group care settings with paid carers). Statistics in Victoria give some sense of trends, with the number of children removed from homes due to protective issues increasing by 27 percent between 1996 and 2004. The length of time children

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spend in placements has also increased, from an average of 1.5 years in 2000–2001 to 205 years in 2003–2004. Accurate statistics on fatal child maltreatment, where a child’s death results from physical violence or neglect by a parent or carer, are not available for Australia because comprehensive information is not collected currently in all Australian states. Some states have established a Child Death Review Committee (for example, Victoria and NSW). The review work of the NSW Committee revealed that of the seventy-five deaths over the period January 7, 1999, to June 30, 2002, that were attributed to maltreatment, forty children were found to have died from abuse and thirty-one from neglect. Infants and young children up to the age of four years were the most likely to suffer fatal abuse or neglect, and over half the deaths occurred in the child’s home. In 85 percent of cases, parental illicit substance abuse, domestic violence, and/or poverty were evident and in 47 percent of cases reviewed, criminal proceedings were commenced as a result of the child’s death. The ‘‘Cinderella Effect’’—where children living in families with a stepparent are at greater risk—has been reported in Australia for both intentional and unintentional childhood fatalities. Scott (2006) described child protection services as ‘‘demoralized, investigation-driven bureaucracies which trawl through escalating numbers of low income families to find a small minority of cases in which statutory intervention is necessary and justifiable, leaving enormous damage in their wake’’ (p. 1). Scott notes the diminishing resource of alternative within-family or community-based placements for children removed from their parent(s) and the fact that two-thirds of children removed from parental care have had four or more previous placements. As a new legislative approach to child protection in Australia, the Victorian government recently set out a new policy framework that aims to create a more integrated system of services that will connect vulnerable families to accessible and flexible community-based prevention support services more quickly, with local service networks redesigned to facilitate a shared approach to responding to children and families at-risk. The new approach, which also strengthens the investigative powers of Victorian child protection services, is enshrined in new legislation, the ‘‘Children’s Bill’’ that was introduced into the Victorian Parliament in late 2006. An important aspect of the new legislation is that all actions and decisions taken under it, including in the children’s court with respect to child protection, will be subject to a ‘‘best interests of children’’ test, focusing on the need to protect children from harm, to protect their rights, and to promote their development. Stable care is to be a key goal of case planning. The new legislation also aims to strengthen the cultural responsiveness of services so they are more inclusive of children from Aboriginal and other cultural backgrounds. With regard to age of recruitment into the military, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) observes a minimum age of seventeen years.

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GROWING UP IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Growing up in Australia in the new century presents a picture of a high degree of economic well-being and greater access to opportunities but also an atmosphere of complexity and uncertainty about the future for many children. The visible affluence, greater access to education and health and welfare support, as well as seemingly better opportunities for success brought about by urbanization, technology, and globalization conceal some serious problems. Many of the social and economic trends and changes to society—falling birth rate, an aging demographic structure, smaller households, older parents, increase of mothers in the workforce, parental separation, divorce, and high mobility—have had significant impact on the quality and provision of care for children. Many forces compete with raising children, including difficulties of combining work with family and changing social values. There are more children living in stress and trauma of marriage breakdown. Incidents of family violence and abuse are high. Isolation, disconnection, and abandonment are issues families face due to changing family structures and family life patterns. The issue of providing high-quality, affordable, and equitable access of early childhood education and care for all children remains a challenge. Provision of inclusive approaches for children requiring special support (indigenous children, children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, children with disabilities, children from low socioeconomic backgrounds, children from rural and remote areas, and children at-risk) still needs improvement. Australia, a highly multicultural society, is becoming a paradoxically multi-faith and secular society. However, ethnocentrism, racism, and xenophobia are prevalent in some sections of the population. The fear of terrorism has become the dominant issue in Australian politics. An atmosphere of suspicion pervades as the population witness the influx of new refugees from Middle East and African countries. Antagonism towards indigenous Australians continues to persist. Social inequalities exist. The indigenous population is recognized as the most economically and educationally disadvantaged. The infant mortality rate for indigenous infants is three times higher than from non-indigenous infants. Indigenous children are overrepresented in outof-home care. Increasing proportions of children suffer from obesity, partly due to the trend in sedentary and unhealthy patterns of living. There are more children suffering from asthma, mental health problems (such as depression and anxiety), and behavioral disorders (such as attention-deficit disorder and hyperactivity). There is increasing recognition that the health, development, and wellbeing of children cannot be addressed in isolation from the family,

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community, and broader socioeconomic, political, and cultural environments in which children live. In recognition of the importance of early years of a child’s life and in response to the challenges of living in the twenty-first century, the Howard/Anderson Government has identified early childhood as a priority area for action in its third term. In September 2001, a Task Force on Child Development, Health and Wellbeing was established to develop a whole-of-government approach to the early years of life. A National Agenda for Early Childhood was formed to bring together policy makers across government departments to coordinate efforts to improve outcomes for children. In June 2004, a draft policy framework that focuses on four key action areas—healthy young families, early learning and care, supporting families and parenting, and creating child-friendly communities—was created. Other government initiatives are the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, Stronger Families and Communities Strategy, and the Australian Early Development Index: Building Better Communities for Children project. In some nongovernmental sectors, child advocates are lobbying for children’s rights and citizenship participation of children. RESOURCE GUIDE Suggested Readings Australian Institute of Family Studies. 2006. Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. AIFS: Melbourne. A very current analysis of children’s lives in Australian families, with a specific focus on parenting and parental leave, work–family balance, and childcare patterns for children. Bowes, J. M. 2004. Children, Families and Communities: Contexts and Consequences. 2nd ed. Melbourne, Victoria: Oxford University Press. A good multi-disciplinary examination of current issues for families and children within Australia covering a diverse range of topics and influences on children’s lives. It includes treatment of controversial issues including the treatment of children stolen from indigenous families. Brennan, D. 2003. The Politics of Australian Child Care. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. A thorough and important analysis of how childcare developed over time in Australia, its history, its politics, and its philosophies. Hartley, R. 1995. Families and Cultural Diversity in Australia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin in association with AIFS. This book provides an insight into the diverse characteristics of family life of key groups in Australia: Aborigines, Anglo-Celtic, Chinese, Filipino, Greek, Italian, Latin American, Lebanese, and Vietnamese. It examines the differences between immigrant groups in relation to family life and changing social and political circumstances in Australia. Stanley, F., Richardson, S. and Prior, M. 2005. Children of the lucky country? How Australian society is turning its back on children and why children matter. Sydney: Pan MacMillan Australia. This book identifies the lack of improvement in key indicators of the health, well-being, and development of children in Australia as the inequalities between the advantaged and disadvantaged grow.

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Nonprint Resources The United Nations. 2005. What’s Going On: Indigenous Children in Australia. DVD. The United Nations. A DVD exploring the lives of indigenous children living in outback Australia and urban Australia.

Web Sites Australian Association for Religious Education, http://www.aare.org.au/. Australian Bureau of Statistics, http://www.abs.gov.au. Australian Institute of Criminology, http://www.aic.gov.au/. Australian Law Reform Commission, http://www.alrc.gov.au/. Australian National Occupational Health and Safety Commission and European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, http://www.nohsc-eu.gov.au/. Australian Research and Alliance for Children and Youth, http://www.aracy.org.au. Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, http://www.immi.gov.au/. Growing Up in Australia—The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, http:// www.aifs.gov.au/growingup/. UNICEF—Statistics regarding Australian children and families, http://www.unicef. org/infobycountry/australia_statistics.html.

Organizations and NGOs Australia Institute of Family Studies, National Child Protection Clearinghouse 300 Queen Street Melbourne, Vic 3000 Australia Web site: http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch Australian clearinghouse of information, publications, and resources on child protection issues and the prevention of child abuse and neglect. Australian Bureau of Statistics Web site: http://www.abs.gov.au The official organization for the collection and dissemination of statistics on all aspects of life in Australia, including families and children. Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission GPO Box 5218 Sydney NSW 2001

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Australia Web site: http://www.hreoc.gov.au An organization that administers federal legislation and handles complaints in relation to human rights, anti-discrimination, social justice, and privacy. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare: Children and Youth Index GPO Box 570 Canberra ACT 2601 Australia Web site: http://www.aihw.gov.au/childyouth/index.cfm A source of statistical information and data in relation to child and youth health and well-being and children’s services (childcare and preschools), child protection services, adoptions, and family support services. Family Court of Australia Family Law Courts National Enquiry Centre GPO Box 9991 Parramatta 2124 Australia Web site: http://www.familycourt.gov.au/ The Family Court of Australia presides over family law matters, including custody of children in the event of marriage breakdown. Federal Department of Families and Community Services and Indigenous Affairs National Office Box 7788 Canberra Mail Centre ACT 2610 Australia Web site: http://www.facsia.gov.au The commonwealth government department responsible for social policies and welfare support for Australian families, including childcare support. The National Children’s and Youth Law Centre c/o University of NSW Sydney NSW 2052 Australia Web site: http://www.ncylc.org.au This organization is a nongovernment organization that addresses human right issues for children and young people.

Selected Bibliography Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2002. Census of Population and Housing: Selected Social and Housing Characteristics, Australia 2001 [Catalogue No: 2015.0]. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2003a. Culture and Leisure: Children’s Out of School Activities. The ABS web site. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/ [email protected]/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834efa/a92e7d04746803ccca2570fe 00198566!OpenDocument. Accessed October 30, 2006.

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Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2003b. Children’s participation in organised cultural activities 2003. The ABS web site. http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/ [email protected]/94713ad445ff1425ca25682000192af2/0186CB55C35783E5CA256 F720083301B?opendocument. Accessed October 30, 2006. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2003c. Children’s participation in organised sport. The ABS web site. http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/[email protected]/94713ad 445ff1425ca25682000192af2/57E1C764BFA85942CA256F7200832FBC?open document. Accessed October 30, 2006. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2003d. Children’s participation in selected leisure activities. The ABS web site. http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/[email protected]/ 94713ad445ff1425ca25682000192af2/EE480A67897DDD23CA256F72008 33043?opendocument. Accessed October 30, 2006. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2004a. Marriages, Australia [Catalogue No: 3306.0.55.001]. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2004b. Divorces, Australia [Catalogue Number: 3307.0.55.001]. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 2006. Australian social trends 2005. The ABS web site. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/4102.0?OpenDocument. Accessed October 30, 2006. Australian Government. 2006. Country Education Profiles. Australia: Canberra: Australian Government. Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS). 2005. What can we learn from the Growing Up in Australia study? The AIFS web site. http://www.aifs.gov.au/ growingup/new.html. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). 2005a. A Picture of Australia’s Children. http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/index.cfm/title. Accessed October 10, 2006. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). 2005b. Australia’s welfare 2005. The AIHW web site. http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/index.cfm/title/ 10186. Accessed October 10, 2006. Australian Law Reform Commission and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. 1997. Seen and Heard: Priority for Children in the Legal Process The Christian Research Association web site. http://www.cra.org.au/pages/ 00000089.cgi. Accessed October 27, 2006. Bouma, G. 2003. ‘‘Religion and Spirituality.’’ In Eds. I. McAllister, S. Dowrick, and R. Hassan. The Cambridge Handbook of Social Sciences in Australia. New York: Cambridge University Press. 626–37. Cahill, D. and M. Leahy. 2004. Constructing a multi-faith network. ACT: Commonwealth of Australia. Cahill, D., G. Bouma, H. Dellal, and M. Leahy. 2004. Religion, Cultural Diversity and Safeguarding Australia. ACT: Commonwealth of Australia. Christian Research Association. 2006. Australian Schools: Growth in the Independent Sector. The Christian Research Association web site. http://www.cra.org.au/ pages/00000089.cgi. Accessed November 30, 2006. Crotty, R. 2006. Reform of religious education curriculum: a cross national opportunity. The Australian Association of Religious Education web site. http:// www.aare.edu.au/96pap/crotr96120.txt. Accessed November 30, 2006. Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST). 2006. National Framework for Values Education in Australian Schools. http://www.valueseducation. edu.au/values/. Accessed November 30, 2006. Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA). 2000. Numeracy, a Priority for All: Challenges for Australian Schools. Canberrra: DETYA.

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Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA). 1998. Literacy for all: the challenge for Australian schools. Canberra: DETYA. Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. 2006. Towards the development of the National Agenda for Early Childhood. The FACS web site. http://www.facs.gov.au/internet/facsinternet.nsf/family/early_childhood. htm. Accessed October 30, 2006. Department of Family and Community Services. 2000. Tomorrow’s children: Australia’s national plan of action against the commercial exploitation of children. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Department of Health and Ageing. 2005. Discussion paper for the development of recommendations for children’s and youths’ participation in self-enhancing physical activity. The Department of Health and Ageing web site. http:// www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/Content/phd-physical-discussioncnt.htm. Accessed October 15, 2006. Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA). 2006. Religious values and principles. The Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) web site. http://www.immi.gov.au/settle/states/values.htm. Accessed October 12, 2006. Earle, L. and R. Fopp. 1999. Introduction to Australian Society. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace. Early Childhood Australia. 1990. Code of ethics. ACT: Early Childhood Australia. Goumas, D. 2003. ‘‘Religion and spirituality.’’ In Eds. D. Dowrick, R. Hassan. and I. McAllister. The Cambridge Handbook of the Social Sciences in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grant, A., P. Grabosky, and F. David. 1999. The commercial sexual exploitation of children. Paper presented at the Children and Crime Victims and Offenders Conference, Brisbane, Australia. Hartley, R. 1995. Families and Cultural Diversity in Australia. New South Wales: Allen & Unwin. Hay, D. and R. Nye. 1998. The Spirit of the Child. London: Fount. Howe, J. 1999. Early Childhood, Family and Society in Australia: A Reassessment. Katoomba: Social Science Press. Hughes, P. 2006. Christianity in the twenty-first century: reflections on the challenges ahead. The Christian Research Association web site. http://www.cra.org. au/pages/00000182.cgi. Accessed October 30, 2006. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. 2006a. A last resort? The report of the National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission web site. http://www.hreoc .gov.au/human_rights/children_detention_report/report/index.htm. Accessed October 27, 2006. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. 2006b. Religion, culture and language for children in immigration detention. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission web site. http://www.hreoc.gov.au/Human_Rights/ children_detention_report/report/chap15.htm. Accessed October 27, 2006. International Labour Organisation. 2006. The end of child labour: Within reach. Global Report under the follow-up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. International Labour Conference, Geneva. Jureidini, R. and M. Poole. 2000. Sociology: Australian Connections. NSW: Allen & Unwin.

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Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. 2006. National goals for schooling in the twenty-first century. Victoria: MCEETYA. National Accreditation Childcare Council. 2005. Quality Improvement and Accreditation System Handbook. NSW: National Accreditation Childcare Council. National Catholic Education Commission. 2002a. The contribution of religion and religious schools to cultural diversity and social cohesion in contemporary Australia; submission to the Australian multicultural foundation. The National Catholic Education Commission web site. Accessed October 29, 2006. National Catholic Education Commission. 2002b. The church community in multicultural Australia. The National Catholic Education Commission web site. http://www.ncec.catholic.edu.au.multi.htm. Accessed October 29, 2006. The National Children’s and Youth Law Centre. 2004. What’s up CROC? Australia’s implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. A background briefing paper. http://www.ncylc.org.au/croc/images/backgroundbriefing. pdf. Accessed September 28, 2006. National Church Life Survey Research. 2006a. Mum’s the word. The National Church Life Survey web site. http://www.ncls.org.au/default.aspx?do cid=3551. Accessed October 27, 2006. National Church Life Survey Research. 2006b. Overseas migrants. The National Church Life Survey web site. http://www.ncls.org.au/default.aspx?do cid=2298&track=1664. Accessed October 27, 2006. National Church Life Survey Research. 2006c. Exploring what Australians value. The Christian Research Association web site. http://www.cra.org.au/pages/ 00000251.cgi. Accessed October 26, 2006. New South Wales Commission for Children and Young People. 2005. Kids speak out about life in immigration detention centers. The New South Wales Commission for Children and Young People web site. http://www.kids.nsw.gov.au/ ourwork/immigrationdetention.html. Accessed October 29, 2006. New South Wales Department of Community Services. 2006. NSW Curriculum Framework for Children’s Services: The Practice of Relationships. Essential Provisions for Children’s Services. New South Wales: Department of Community Services. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 2001. Early childhood education and care policy in Australia. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development web site. http://www.oecd.org. Accessed September 28, 2006. Scott, D. 2006. Sowing the seeds of innovation in child protection. Paper presented to the 10th Australasian Child Abuse and Neglect Conference, February, Wellington. Stanley, F., S. Richardson, and M. Prior. 2005. Children of the Lucky Country? How Australian Society is Turning its Back on Children and Why Children Matter. Sydney: Pan MacMillan Australia. Swee-Hin, T. 2004. ‘‘Interfaith dialogue: signs of hope.’’ Faith and Religion in South Australia, South Australian Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs Commission. Adelaide: Multicultural Australia. Tooley, G.A., M. Karakis, M. Stokes, and J. Ozanne-Smith. 2006. ‘‘Generalising the Cinderella Effect to unintentional childhood fatalities.’’ Evolution and Human Behaviour 27:224–230.

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BANGLADESH Mesbah-us-Saleheen and Khondaker Mohammod Shariful Huda NATIONAL PROFILE The People’s Republic of Bangladesh, previously known as East Pakistan, emerged as an independent and sovereign state from what was then Pakistan on December 16, 1971, following a nine-month-long War of Liberation. Bangladesh, run by a parliamentary form of government, is situated in the northeastern part of South Asia and is bordered by India to the west, north, and east, Myanmar to the southeast, and the Bay of Bengal to the south. Except for the high lands in the north and hilly regions in the east, the country is mostly low, flat, and fertile. Some of the world’s largest rivers flow through the country to form the largest delta on earth, and floodplains occupy 80 percent of the country. With a population of more than 150 million (CIA World Factbook 2007), in an area of 147,570 square kilometers (about the size of Arkansas or Wisconsin in the United States of America), the land is one of the most densely populated

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countries in the world with approximately 900 persons per square kilometer (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics [BBS] 1994). Historically, the country is a transition zone between southwest and southeast Asia. Ethnically, the country is homogeneous, and the language of the vast majority of the people is Bangla (Bengali), except for a small tribal population of about 1.2 million (BBS 1994). Nearly 89.7 percent of the population’s religion is Islam. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity are the religions of the rest of the population. The total population of Bangladesh is 150 million, 13 percent of which (about 16.9 million) is under age five, and 39.5 percent of which is under age fifteen (BBS 2003). The average number of persons per household is 4.9, and the population growth rate is 1.5 percent per annum. About 28 percent of the population lives in urban areas. The age distribution of younger children age five to nine and ten to fourteen is 13.6 and 12.8 percent, respectively (B.B.S. 2003). In 2007 the sex ratio was 1.052 male(s)/female. The birth rate per 1,000 population was estimated at 29.36 and infant mortality rate was 59.12 per 1,000 live births (CIA World Factbook 2007). Total fertility rate (TFR) is currently estimated at 2.6. Life expectancy for men and women was estimated at sixty-three and sixty-four years respectively in 2005 (BBS 2003). Child mortality rate under the age of five was estimated at 4.1 per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) is 3.8 per 1,000 live births in 2001. Stunting among girls has declined from 65.9 in 1989– 1990 to 49.1 percent in 2000. Prevalence of underweight girls declined from 67.8 percent in 1989–1990 to 50.9 percent in 2000 (BBS 2003). There has been a steady increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita from US$273 in 1990–1991 to US$441 in 2004 (Ali, 2006). The country demonstrated a steady economic growth by an average of 4.75 percent per year throughout the 1990s. The Human Poverty Index for Bangladesh was ranked at 85 in 2006 (UNDP 2006). Sixtythree million people in Bangladesh continue to live below the poverty line. Compared with male-headed households, female-headed households are more likely to live in extreme poverty. Bangladesh ranked 110 among 144 countries on the UNDP Gender Development Index (GDI) for 2004, an increase of thirteen positions since 1999. There has been a narrowing of the gender gap in most social MDG (Millennium Development Goals) indicators in general and in the education sector in particular. For example, with targeted government policies, recent female enrollment rates in primary and secondary schools have exceeded that of males. Yet critics maintain that much work is needed in terms of women’s economic and political participation and adult literacy. Except in some ethnic minority groups, the family system in Bangladesh is patriarchal. The father, as legal guardian, is responsible for taking care of the children, though by nature they may remain close to their

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mothers. In Bangladesh, boys and girls under the age of fourteen are considered children. The UN Convention of the Rights of the Child treats every person younger than eighteen years old as a child, although the convention also allows every society to consider its own laws and customs. Generally, children in Bangladesh are grouped into three categories: Sishu—a child under five years of age, Balak (male) or Balika (female)—a child of six to ten years, and Kishor (male) or Kishori (female)—a child of age eleven to fourteen.

KEY FACTS – BANGLADESH Population: 150,448,339 (July 2007 est.) Infant mortality rate: 59.12 deaths/1,000 live births (2007 est.) Life expectancy at birth: 62.84 years (2007 est.) Literacy rate: 43.1 percent (2003 est.) Net primary school enrollment/attendance: 84 percent (2000–2005) Internet users: 300,000 (2005) People living with HIV/AIDS: 13,000 (2001 est.) Human Poverty Index (HPI-1) Rank: 85 (2006 est.) Sources: CIA World Factbook: Bangladesh. http://www.cia.gov/cia/ publications/factbook/geos/bg.html. April 17, 2007; United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report 2006–Bangladesh. http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/ statistics/countries/data_sheets/cty_ds_BGD.html. April 26, 2007; UNICEF. At a Glance: Bangladesh–Statistics. http:// www.unicef.org/infobycountry/bangladesh_bangladesh_ statistics.html. April 25, 2007.

OVERVIEW Public commitment to children’s welfare and children’s rights has a long tradition in Bangladesh. Article 28 (4) of the country’s Constitution, adopted in 1972, the Bangladesh Children’s Act of 1974, and the Bangladesh Shishu Academy (Bangladesh Children’s Academy, BSA) Ordinance of 1976 bear testimony to such early special attention. Currently, the government is deliberating on a comprehensive national policy on children. The government’s social policy attaches highest priority to the survival, protection, and development of children in the country. It has taken up a number of activities that directly impact the welfare of children. The Ministry of Social Welfare (MSW) oversees all welfare activities pertaining to children in the country. To give more importance to the development of children, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs has been renamed as the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs. This Ministry is responsible to the National Council for Children Affairs, the National Awards for Children, and matters relating to the BSA, leaving child welfare and coordination of activities of other ministries and organizations in connection with social welfare. UNICEF and other international bodies/foreign agencies coordinate with MSW. The Ministry manages its own programs and monitors programs initiated by other government departments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The definitions of a ‘‘child’’ given by different acts and statutes in force in Bangladesh are inconsistent. For example, while the Bangladesh Majority Act of 1875 defines a person below the age of eighteen years as a

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child, the Guardians and Wards Act of 1890 allows a child to remain a ward under the court until age twenty-one. The age of majority is twenty-one years for boys and eighteen for girls. Under Muslim law, a child becomes an adult at puberty, which varies with gender. Childbirths are usually attended by female members of the family along with perhaps an untrained villager or a friend to help. Ten percent of rural births and 45 percent of urban births are attended by people trained in modern obstetric practices. Twelve of every 1,000 newborns die immediately from birth injuries, often caused by untrained attendants, premature birth, and other causes. Low birth weight babies have a high risk of mortality. Approximately half of all newborn babies weigh less than 2,500 grams. Maternal malnutrition, small stature of the mother, infections during pregnancy, anemia, and closely spaced pregnancies contribute to low birth weight. In the first week of life, an additional 23 babies of every 1,000 die due to premature birth, neonatal tetanus, and other causes. Throughout the first year, another 75 per 1,000 live births die from tetanus, acute respiratory infections including pneumonia, diarrhea, and other causes (BBS 2003b). Mortality for children under five between the years 1992–1996 was 116 per 1,000 births, meaning that one in nine children born in Bangladesh dies before reaching their fifth birthday. The infant mortality rate was 82 deaths per 1,000 births, and the child mortality rate was 37 per 1,000 each year. During infancy, risk of death in the first month of life (48 per 1,000) was greater than in the next eleven months (34 per 1,000 [BBS 1998]). The figures suggest that child survival in Bangladesh has improved since the mid-1980s. Under-five mortality has declined by one-third from 173 deaths per 1,000 births in the period ten to fourteen years before the survey (approximately 1982–1986) to 116 for the period zero to four years before it. The pace of decline was faster for child mortality than for infant mortality; child mortality rate declined by 42 percent (from 63 per 1,000 births ten to fourteen years before the survey to 37 per 1,000 during the period zero to four years before the survey), while infant mortality rate declined by 30 percent over the same period (from 117 to 82 per 1,000 births). It is interesting to note that neonatal mortality rates have fallen more sharply than postnatal mortality in the recent past. EDUCATION There are four separate systems of education in Bangladesh: government-run schools, private schools, madrassas (Islamic religious schools), and schools run by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Currently, more than 400 NGOs in Bangladesh are involved in the basic education sector. Formal education consists of five years of primary education, five years of secondary education, two years of higher secondary education, and three to five years of higher education.

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According to the Primary Education Act of 1992, the compulsory age of entry into a primary school is six years, although many children enter at four to five years. Tuition fees and textbooks for all children up to grade five and up to grade eight for female children are supplied free of cost by the government. To increase primary school enrollment, the government of Bangladesh introduced the Food For Education (FEE) program in 1993, allowing poor families to receive a free monthly ration of rice or wheat for sending their children to primary school. There are about 37,000 government schools in the country with a student enrollment number of approximately 12 million students (BBS 2003). The total budget allocation of 2 percent of the GDP for education in Bangladesh is the lowest of all the South Asian countries. Many parents in Bangladesh consider female children a family burden and are less likely to send them to school; male children are given educational preference. Despite this, education is a high priority of the government, and special importance has been attached to primary education. Stipends have been introduced at the primary level for ensuring education of underprivileged and poor children. Consequently, the dropout rate has decreased, and the enrollment rate has increased. The government introduced the Reaching Out of School Children Project in order to bring underprivileged children under the purview of primary education. Half a million children would get educational opportunities under this program. At present, 90 percent of school-aged children are now being enrolled in schools. Education for girls is now free up to grade twelve to promote female education. In addition, 20 million girls receive a stipend for continuing their education. Preschool education is mostly confined to the urban and suburban areas of the country through kindergarten. Preschool education is divided into playgroup, nursery, kindergarten one, and kindergarten two. These are all privately owned, and kindergarten programs are not financed by the government. PLAY AND RECREATION The government is highly aware of the recreational and cultural needs of the children. There are various types of institutional and noninstitutional facilities for recreation and cultural activities. Private groups, government organizations, and children’s groups provide facilities for recreation. One leading organization in the government sector is the Bangladesh Shishu (Children) Academy (BSA). Objectives of the academy include the development of patriotic feelings, a sense of discipline, and love for the national heritage. It organizes countrywide cultural activities, including songs, dances, drama, and children’s films, holds countrywide competitions, and publishes a children’s magazine. Other private children’s organizations, such as Kochi Kachar Ashar (meaning ‘‘children’s

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party’’ or ‘‘get together’’) and Khelaghor (meaning ‘‘playhouse’’) also organize cultural activities. Schools and colleges also organize games and cultural activities for children in the country. Generally, children in Bangladesh do not have adequate access to facilities for games and sports. Not all educational institutions have sufficient arrangements for outdoor activities. Some urban communities provide open spaces and parks, but those are diminishing due to increased population. Many urban parks are now occupied by vendors or used for other purposes. In rural areas, almost every school has an open field and students play there. Soccer and volleyball, apart from some traditional games, like Daria Bandha, Golla Choot, and Ghuti (mainly played by girls), are very popular in rural areas while cricket is very popular with urban children. Every year competitions in games, music, dance, oratory, painting, and acting are organized at national and district levels. There are about sixty television channels available to the public, including nine channels broadcast in Bengali. Every channel offers children’s programming, and several organize nationwide competitions. Some western childrens’ programs like Sesame Street, Tom & Jerry, Baby Loonytoons, Pingu, Scooby Doo, Bob the Builder, and Postman Pat are popular among children, particularly in urban areas. CHILD LABOR In Bangladesh’s agrarian economy, the connotation given to child work may be problematic, because children take part in various activities and for different reasons. They perform household activities and various work within the family enterprise, and work as wage laborers outside the household. They work to assist their parents, to learn certain skills, or purely for reasons of survival. Whether such activities should be considered deleterious to their physical and mental development depends on the length, intensity, and the nature of the work. Light household work may be beneficial to the extent that work does not interfere with school attendance. Child labor is not illegal in Bangladesh, although different laws discourage employment of children below fourteen years of age. In 1996, the National Sample Survey of Child Labor in Bangladesh, conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) defined child laborers as children five to fourteen years old who worked either one or more hours for profit or without pay in a family enterprise during the twelve-month survey period, or were not found working but were absent from a job during the reference period. According to BBS, the number of child laborers was 6.6 million in 1995–1996. Nineteen percent of the total child population (five to fourteen years) was found to be economically active. A total of 11.6 percent of the child labor force belonged to the five- to nine-year age group and the rest to the ten- to fourteen-year age group; 95.6 percent of the child labor force was employed. Of the employed child

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workers, males constituted 59.8 percent and females 40.2 percent (BBS 2003a). Child workers were scattered all over the country. Seventeen percent of the child labor force lived in the urban areas and the rest in rural areas. Child workers were present in almost all the sectors of the economy with the exception of mining and utilities. Agriculture accounted for 65.4 percent of the child workers, followed by services (10.3 percent), manufacturing (8.2 percent), and transport and communication (1.8 percent). Other activities including household work accounted for 14.3 percent of the working children (BBS 2003a). The second National Child Labor Survey (NCLS) 2002–03 was conducted by the BBS, which followed international concepts and definitions as adopted by the Statistical Information and Monitoring Program on Child Labor (SIMPOC) of International Labour Organization (ILO) IPEC (International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor) for the measurement of child labor parameters. The survey covered the entire country and aimed at providing reliable estimates of economically active children aged five to seventeen years and child labor at the national level, both urban and rural (BBS 2003a). A comparison of the two surveys indicates noticeable changes in some important aspects of child population in the country and its participation in the work force. It is expected that with the increase in population, child population will also increase. However, child population as a percentage of total population declined during the same period as evident by both Population Census 1991 and 2001 and Child Labor Force Survey 1995–96 and 2002–03. Children’s participation in the labor force declined between the two survey periods. The proportion of working children in the total child population aged five to fourteen years dropped from 18.3 percent in 1995–1996 to 14.2 percent in 2002–2003. Girls largely contributed to these changes; the percentage of working girls aged five to fourteen has declined from 15.2 to 8.5 percent. The decline was faster in rural areas than in urban areas, possibly because of introduction of female secondary stipend program at the secondary schools in the country. Significant redistribution also occurred in the major occupations of working children, which shifted largely from the agricultural sector to other sectors. The proportion of working children in the agricultural sector has declined from 71 percent in 1995–1996 to 56 percent in 2002–2003. On the other hand, the proportion of working children in production and transport laborers has increased from 5 percent in 1995–1996 to 25 percent in 2002–2003. Boys largely contributed to these changes, and the girls’ share remained almost unchanged. The proportion of sales workers has also increased significantly (from 6 to 14 percent), and both boys and girls have shared the increase almost equally. A research report conducted in six divisional cities showed that children were involved in 430 types of economic activities and 67 of these were hazardous (BBS 2003a). In 1990, Bangladesh became one of the signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the ensuing Summit Declaration

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and Plan of Action. Also in 1990, the government began taking measures to attract poor children and their families to primary education, and to tackle the high dropout and low attendance rates in the formal school system. This trend provided a sustainable solution to the primary education problem and made a substantial impact on solving the child labor issue. In March 2001, the government of Bangladesh ratified the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 182 and, in December 2001, the Ministry of Labor and Employment took the initiative to begin developing a national policy on child labor. On a more practical level, the Ministry of Labor and Employment is trying to implement a USAID-funded project titled ‘‘Eradication of Hazardous Child Labor in Bangladesh.’’ Interventions under this ‘‘demonstration’’ project, which covers areas in Dhaka and Chittagong Municipal Corporations, include nonformal education and skills training for working children and micro credit support for their guardians/parents. FAMILY Kinship is the core of social life in Bangladesh. A family group residing in a bari (home or house) functions as the basic unit of economic endeavor, landholding, and social identity. In rural areas, the chula (kitchen) defines the effective household—an extended family exploiting jointly held property and being fed from a jointly operated kitchen. A bari might consist of one or more such functional households, depending on the circumstances of family relationship. Married sons generally lived in their parents’ household during the father’s lifetime. Although sons usually built separate houses for their nuclear families, they remained under their fathers’ authority, and wives under their mothers-in-law’s. Death of the father usually precipitated the separation of adult brothers from their united households. Such a split generally caused a little change in the physical layout of the bari, however. Families at different stages of the cycle would display different configurations of household membership. Girls in Bangladesh are discriminated against socially, psychologically, and economically, although discrimination against girls/women is against the law. In poor families, a girl child is considered a burden and transitory member of the family, and is married off with a huge dowry. The parents, for economic reasons, are reluctant to send her to school, giving preference to the male child, the family heir and future breadwinner. Girls are expected to help with all household chores, fetch water, cook, bring fuel and fodder, and look after the animals and siblings. Girls who work outside the home are paid less than boys. The Family Courts Ordinance of 1985 regulates the maintenance of children in case of separation or divorce of parents. A father is bound to maintain his sons until they have reached puberty. He is also bound to

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maintain his daughters until they are married, but he is not bound to maintain his adult sons unless infirmity or disease disables them. The fact that the children are in the custody of their mother during their infancy does not relieve the father of the obligation to maintain them. If the father is poor and incapable of earning by his own labor, the mother—if she is able—is bound to maintain her children as the father would. If the mother is also very poor, the obligation to maintain children lies with the grandfather, provided he is in easy circumstances. Divorce still is not a growing phenomenon. In urban areas in particular, extended family structure is diminishing in favor of nuclear family. Females are the core members of a family in child rearing. There are several family customs that have been observed methodically. For a Muslim boy/girl, aqiqa, a function of naming the child, is performed after sacrificing one goat/sheep for a girl and two goats/sheep for a boy. For a Hindu boy/girl child, annaprashan (the first intake of solid food) is performed. For a girl, it is done in an even month, either sixth or eight months after birth, and for a boy, it is done in an odd month, either seven or nine months after birth. HEALTH The Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey (BDHS) in 2004 showed that neonatal, postneonatal, infant, child, and under-five mortality rates are improving. Comparison of the 2004 data with the earlier BDHS survey results, show a substantial (20 percent) improvement in child (one to four years of age) survival, but no recent evidence of progress in infant mortality rates. In conjunction with the World Health Organization guidelines, the government calls for all children to be vaccinated against tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus, polio and measles. A pilot program on hepatitis B vaccination is also underway. As many as 73 percent of Bangladeshi children aged twelve to twenty-three months can be considered to be fully immunized. Only 3 percent of children aged between twelve and twenty-three months do not receive any childhood vaccinations. Deficiencies in vitamin A can be avoided by giving children supplements of vitamin A, by capsule, every six months. About 82 percent of the children aged between nine and fifty-nine months receive vitamin A supplementation. Dehydration from diarrhea is an important contributing cause of childhood mortality. The data show a slight decline in the prevalence of diarrhea over time: from 8 percent of children under five in 1996–1997 to 6 percent in 1999–2000, and an increase in the use of oral rehydration solution (ORS) from 49 percent in 1996–1997 to 61 percent in 1999–2000. The data from 2004 BDHS also show that about 40 percent of children under five had fever, and around 21 percent suffered from acute respiratory infection (ARI). The proportion of families seeking care from a trained provider

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for children with ARI was only 20 percent in 2004, compared with 27 percent in 1999–2000. In 1998, the Government of Bangladesh adopted the Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI) strategy for reducing child mortality and morbidity. By December 2004, IMCI interventions were introduced in 48 new upazilas (police stations). The government of Bangladesh is committed to accelerating the implementation of IMCI as a key strategy to reduce childhood mortality. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) is responsible for health policy formulation, planning, and decision making at the macro level. Under MOHFW, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) is responsible for the implementation of all health programs and providing technical guidance to the Ministry, and the Directorate General of Family Planning (DGFP) is responsible for implementing Family Planning (FP) programs and providing FP-related technical assistance to the Ministry. There has been an epidemiological transition of mortality patterns in Bangladesh. Due to the relative decline in infectious disease-related deaths, injuries and accidents now account for a higher percentage of deaths. Recent studies show that injuries and accidents cause 8 percent of all under-five deaths. Injuries and accidents contribute to 30 percent of total deaths among children younger than one to four years. Malnutrition has declined in rural Bangladesh and with it, strong disparities by gender have been reduced. The increase in female education and the reduction of high-order births have increased children’s chances for good health. Although not fully eradicated, sex bias in nutrition, documented in the past, has been greatly reduced. Factors such as mothers’ educational and income levels as well as household resources have significantly contributed to positive childhood nutritional practices within the family. Children’s health is going through demographic transition in Bangladesh, being characterized by declining fertility and higher rates of child survival. Education of girls and women is on the rise, and women demonstrate increasing autonomy at home. Despite these positive developments, many children remain at serious risk of malnutrition. Therefore, there is a serious and immediate need for targeted efforts to improve treatment and education. For the first few months of life, the mortality rate of girls is lower than that of boys. This is the norm around the world. However, the growth of infant girls in Bangladesh begins to falter at about seven or eight months of age, and their mortality rate surpasses that of boys. On average, the incidence of severe malnutrition among girls under five is two to four percent higher than that of boys. There are a number of reasons for this reversal in trend. First, once weaning begins, girls are given less food than boys. Second, parents generally are slower to seek medical help for a sick girl. There is a strong belief among mothers that boys get sick more often; therefore, they need more medical help. Once malnourished, a child is at greater risk from a host of childhood diseases. If a girl lives until the

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age of five, she has survived the hardest period. By the time she reaches school age, her likelihood of dying has decreased. Nevertheless, the mortality rate for girls after the age of five, even before the childbearing years, remains higher than for boys. The government has adopted no specific measures to effectively evaluate, identify, track, or monitor children with disability. This can mainly be attributed to the much-reduced number of children with disabilities and the lack of awareness and sensitization among policy makers. The government runs several schools for children with disabilities. Apart from this, several NGOs have programs for these children. The public health service system is not very bright. Poor families can go to the public hospitals for their treatments, which can be done without cost in many cases. A number of NGOs are very active and provide free health care to poor people. Children working in some industries are exposed to environmental health hazards. At present, there is no specific law to protect children from such hazards. LAWS AND LEGAL STATUS The legal protection and welfare of children in Bangladesh is present in various laws and statutes enacted at different periods, from the British rule of the undivided India up through the present day. A number of laws in Bangladesh contain specific provisions dealing with the protection, maintenance, and well-being of children. The age of majority varies as well. According to the Constitution of Bangladesh, a child remains a child until the age of sixteen, while according to the National Child Policy the age is fourteen. In the factory law, the age of a child is fixed at sixteen, while in the Shops and Establishment Act it is twelve. The Mining Law fixes the age at less than fifteen, the Law of Contract at eighteen and the Child (Labor Registrar) Law at fifteen. There are numbers of laws and acts relating to the protection and welfare of children in Bangladesh. Some of the main points are summarized below: .

. .

.

.

.

The Penal Code (1860) provides that nothing done by a child under twelve is an offense, and the age of consent is twelve. The Contract Act (1872) makes a contract by a minor absolutely void. The Guardians and Wards Act (1890) empowers a court to appoint a guardian for a minor if he/she is in agreement. The Mines Act (1923) prohibits employment of a child (under fifteen years of age) in a mine and regulates the employment of those above fifteen years but below seventeen years. The Child Marriage Restraint Act (1929) provides punishment for a male adult marrying a child below sixteen years of age. The Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act (1933) provides punishment for forcing a girl under eighteen years into prostitution.

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.

.

.

.

.

The Children (Pledging of Labor) Act (1933) provides for penalty for parent or guardian making agreement to pledge the labor of a child below fifteen years. The Employment of Children Act (1938) regulates the employment of children in specified industries. The Maternity Benefit Act (1939) regulates the employment of women for certain periods before and after childbirth. The Minimum Wages Ordinance (1961) prohibits employers from payment of workers under eighteen years of age below the minimum rates fixed by the board set up under the act. The Factories Act (1956) regulates secure and healthy working conditions for children or adolescents. The Children’s Act (1974) and Children’s Rules (1976) provide for the custody, protection, and treatment of children, and trial and punishment of youthful offenders by juvenile courts.

In addition to these formal laws, a number of personal and religious laws that relate to social customs, such as marriage, divorce, guardianship, adoption, and inheritance, also affect children. Some have even been modified by special legislation to provide greater rights to women and children. More concerted attempts to review the children’s laws of Bangladesh are in the active agenda of the government. There is a subcommittee on child legislation within the MSW designed to review existing child laws and make recommendations for their amendment or for the introduction of new laws. The committee has commissioned a number of reviews of existing laws related to children, and the MSW has also prepared a review of legislation affecting the girl child. The formation of the Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (Bangladesh Child Rights Forum, BSAF) represents the most important development in the NGO sector toward harmonizing national policy with the convention. This forum, a network of organizations and the people in the country, has been established to coordinate child rights activities of different NGOs working for children in Bangladesh. By maintaining links with national and international bodies, the forum aims at upgrading the rights and privileges enjoyed by children, especially the most disadvantaged. The BSAF’s relationship with the government is one of partnership. Bangladesh is a signatory to the ILO Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention (No. 182), ILO Forced Labor Convention (No. 29), ILO Abolition of Forced Labor Convention (No. 105), and UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Existing legislation deals only with children working in the formal sector. There is no single code or law dealing with children working in informal areas. Cooperation is necessary between the Ministry of Labor and Employment and the ILO’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) to review the existing child labor laws with a view to removing anomalies. Fixing a

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uniform minimum age for admission to work at fourteen years (eighteen years for hazardous occupations) and prohibiting employment of children in hazardous operations in shops and other establishments is essential. RELIGIOUS LIFE The people of Bangladesh are deeply religious but not guided by any extreme ideology or intolerant philosophy. It is manifest in the rich cultural diversity that they celebrate throughout the country on important occasions, irrespective of religious affiliation. Freedom of religion is enshrined in Article 2A of the Bangladesh Constitution, which guarantees all citizens of Bangladesh equal rights and privileges and equal protection under the law. Article 28 of the Constitution prohibits any type of discrimination on religious or other grounds while the contents of religious freedom have been detailed in Article 41. The government of Bangladesh is committed to meet the obligations that flow from the above-mentioned constitutional provisions. Schools remain closed for religious holidays of different religions. There is freedom for religious rights in schools. Religious books, according to different religions, are incorporated in school curriculum. CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT The government estimates that approximately 6.6 million children between the ages of five and fourteen years work. Working children were found engaged in 200 different types of activities, of which 49 were regarded as harmful to children’s physical and mental well-being. Out of 31 million children between the ages of five and fourteen years, 6.13 million were economically active, of which 1.9 million were between five and nine years. Child workers represent about 12 percent of the total labor force of the country. For the year 2000, the ILO projected 4,846,000 economically active children: 2,300,000 girls and 2,547,000 boys between the ages of ten and fourteen, representing 27.7 percent of this age group. At the 1996 Third SAARC Ministerial Conference on Children, the government statistics indicated the figure to be only around 6 million for all children aged between five and fourteen. Of the 34.5 million children between five and fifteen years, 6,584,000 (19 percent) are child workers. More than 9,000 girls are trafficked each year from Nepal and Bangladesh into bondage in India and Pakistan, often with the acquiescence or cooperation of state officials. Human Rights Monitors report that child kidnapping and trafficking for labor bondage and prostitution continue to be serious and widespread problems. Children who work in the domestic sector may work in conditions resembling servitude and prostitution. It was reported that 168 children were trafficked, 369 children were missing, and 295 children were kidnapped in the year 2001. Human Rights Monitor estimates that in

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a year more than 20,000 women and children are trafficked from the country for the purpose of forced prostitution. It is estimated that there are anywhere from 100 to more than 1,000 underage South Asian camel jockeys currently working in the United Arab Emirates alone; while many are from India and Pakistan, a growing number come from Bangladesh. A joint study report prepared by the Ministry of Home and Social Welfare and Women’s Affairs shows that over the last five years at least 13,220 children have been smuggled out of the country, and only 4,700 have been rescued. Trafficking of children consists of all acts involved in the procurement— transportation, forced movement, and/or selling and buying of children within and/or across borders by fraudulent means, deception, coercion, direct and/or indirect threats, abuse of authority for the purpose of placing a child against her/his will without his/her consent in exploitative and abusive situations, such as commercial sexual abuse, forced marriage, bonded and forced labor, begging, camel jockeying, and other sports and organ trade. Causes of trafficking and the factors leading to this apparent increase are multiple and complicated. These factors are embedded within the socio-economic structure of the country. Traffickers adopt different strategies and tricks to allure and enroll young children and women (and their families) into the trafficking process (Gazi et al. 2001). Bangladesh’s police department estimates that there are about 20,000 children currently engaged in street prostitution. About 10,000 girls are active in prostitution inside the country. Over the last decade, more than 200,000 Bangladeshi girls were lured under false circumstances and sold into the sex industry in countries including Pakistan, India, and the Middle East. About 40,000 children from Bangladesh are involved in prostitution in Pakistan. Bangladeshi girls are also trafficked to India for commercial sex trade. Ten thousand Bangladeshi children are in brothels in Western India. An estimated 35,000 to 45,000 children are believed to be involved with criminal gangs engaged in arms and drug trading. An estimated 13,000 children in Bangladesh are prey to the commercial sex industry of the country. More than 20,000 children are born and live in the eighteen registered red-light areas of Bangladesh. Here, they see their mothers being exploited, and they ultimately resign themselves to the same exploitation. Small children help their mothers in household chores and bring refreshments for their mothers’ clients. Boys tend to become pimps once they grow up and girls continue their mothers’ profession. Most girls enter the profession before the age of twelve. Of all child workers, about 3 percent work as domestic servants. According to a survey conducted by SHOISHOB—an organization working with child domestic labor in Bangladesh—of more than 10,000 middle-class households in Dhaka, there are between 250,000 and 300,000 resident child servants in the Dhaka metropolitan area alone. More than 20 percent of child domestic servants were between five and ten years age.

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The BBS conducted Quick Count Survey (QCS) of Street Children in November–December 2002. According to the QCS estimate, there were 2,573 street children in Bangladesh. To create an accurate and verifiable database of street children, BBS-ILO conducted a base line sample survey of Bangladesh’s street children and entrusted the Foundation for Research on Education Planning and Development (FREPD) to carry out the study in April–May 2003. Among all surveyed street children, 97.56 percent were boys and 2.44 percent were girls. An overwhelming 55 percent of street children were found in Dhaka. Many of the country’s poorest children migrate to urban areas, particularly to the metropolitan cities of Dhaka and Chittagong. Among the street children covered in the survey, 48.7 percent were between eleven and fourteen years old, 26 percent were between fourteen and seventeen years old, and 25 percent were between five and eleven years old. Girls were relatively younger (average age: 11.5 years) compared with boys (average age: 12.2 years). The first job of 33.78 percent of street children was a street-related job, while 66.22 percent had other jobs before becoming street children. While the list is quite long, domestic servants, agricultural workers, beggars, porters, paper pickers, and flower sellers feature prominently as being typical of the ‘‘first job.’’ Street children are involved in a wide variety of activities, including collecting old papers, working as porters and hawkers, begging, shoe-polishing, selling flowers, and so on. A small percentage of street children are, as reported by key informants, involved in theft, snatching, pick-pocketing, sex work, drug business, informer, and so on. Age variation is also noticeable. Begging was predominant among younger children, while porter and paper pickers are common activities among the elder children. However, regardless of age, children frequently work as porters and paper pickers. GROWING UP IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY The most important step of the government towards harmonizing national law and policy with the convention was the formulation of the National Children Policy in December 1994. Divided into eight chapters, the policy’s principal objectives are to formally harmonize all child development activities in the country with the provisions of the Convention. It declares six general objectives in the light of the Convention objectives. These are related to: (a) safe birth and survival; (b) proper educational and psychological development; (c) ensuring family environment for development; (d) providing assistance to children in difficult circumstances; (e) ensuring the best interest of the child; (f) protecting children’s legal rights and, thus protecting them from discrimination. To achieve these objectives, specific measures elaborated in the policy document are to be taken. A proposed National Council will monitor the application of these specific measures to government development activities as well as other

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children-related welfare activities. The council will be the highest police body working for children in the country. The minister in charge of the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs will be the ex-officio vicechairperson of the Council and the secretary of the Ministry will act as the member-secretary. A separate Ministry is being developed for the welfare of women and children. The government has already implemented two National Plans of Action. The Third National Plan of Action for the period 2004 to 2009 has focused on five specific areas: food and nutrition; health; education and empowerment of the girl child; protection from abuse, exploitation and violence; and physical environment. The program, a high priority of the government, also focuses on education for all children, especially girls. It has introduced stipend programs for the students at primary and secondary levels. The main focus of the program is to increase enrollment and prevent dropouts. Bangladesh figures among the low prevalence countries affected by HIV/AIDS. However, as a precautionary measure, the country has adopted a National Policy on HIV/AIDS giving particular focus to children affected by HIV/AIDS and an all-party Parliamentary Committee to monitor the situation in the country. RESOURCE GUIDE Suggested Readings Ackerman, P., M. S. Thormann, and S. Huq. 2005. Assessment of Educational Needs of Disabled Children in Bangladesh. Creative Associates International Inc. for USAID. Contract No. HNE-1-00-00-00038-00. The study provides the results of a desk study analysis, informational site visits, and a research study to assess preschool and primary education in Bangladesh for children with disabilities. Ahmad, A., and M. Quasem. 1991. Child Labor in Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies. The report analyzed the child labor scenario of Bangladesh. Ali, Z. 2006. Do Child Labourers Come from the Poorest? Working Paper Number 11. Programme for Research on Chronic Poverty in Bangladesh (PRCPB). Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), Dhaka, Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM), University of Manchester, UK. An in-depth study on the child laborers of Bangladesh. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). 2003. Statistical Pocketbook. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Government of Bangladesh. The volume gives the Statistical Data of Bangladesh on some relevant topics. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). 2003a. Report on National Child Labour Survey 2002–2003. December. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Government of Bangladesh. The report presents detailed information on the size and composition of working children as well as child labor in broad occupation and industry groups, cross-classified by urban and rural areas.

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Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). 2003b. A Baseline Survey of the Street Children in Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Foundation for Research on Education Planning and Development (FREPD). The report provides an in-depth study on the street children of Bangladesh. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). 1998. Statistical yearbook of Bangladesh (19th ed.). Dhaka, Bangladesh; Government of Bangladesh. The volume gives detailed statistical data on Bangladesh. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). 1997. Statistical Pocketbook. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Government of Bangladesh. The volume gives the Statistical Data of Bangladesh on some relevant topics. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). 1994. National Census Report of 1991. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Government of Bangladesh. Banglapedia (National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh). 2003. Volume 2, BAN-CHO. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. The topic gives information on children’s issues in Bangladesh. Banu, N., S. Bhuiyan, and S. Sabhlok. 1998. ‘‘Child Labor in Bangladesh.’’ International Journal of Technical Cooperation 4(1):1–16. The article explains the nature of child labor in Bangladesh. Barua, S. K. 2005. Poor and Destitute Working Children in Bangladesh. Chittagong, Bangladesh: SPG Welfare Society. The paper discusses implementing child rights in early childhood. Conticini, A. and D. Hulme. 2006. Escaping Violence, Seeking Freedom: Why Children in Bangladesh Migrate to Street. Working Paper Number 10. Programme for Research on Chronic Poverty in Bangladesh (PRCPB). Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), Dhaka, Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC), Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM), University of Manchester, UK. The paper explores the argument that children abandon their families and migrate to the street because of economic poverty through the analysis of detailed empirical research. Frankenberg, E. and R. Kuh. 2004. The Implications of Family System and Economic Context for Intergenerational Transfers in Indonesia and Bangladesh. Los Angeles, CA: California Center for Population Research, University of California at Los Angeles. The paper examines the transfers of money and goods between parents and adult children, using extremely detailed similar data from Indonesia and Bangladesh. Gazi, R., Z. H. Chowdhury, S. M. N. Alam, E. Chowdhury, F. Ahmed, and S. Begum. 2001. Trafficking of Women and Children in Bangladesh: An Overview. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Centre for Health and Population Research. ICDDR,B. The report includes a discussion on the context of trafficking from the global, regional, and Bangladesh perspectives. South Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions for trafficking because of its large population, largescale rural-urban migration, the large population living in conditions of chronic poverty, and recurrent natural disasters. Khan, Z. R. and H. Arefeen. 1990. The Situation of Child Prostitutes in Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Dana Publishers. This book gives a detailed study on the nature of the child prostitutes in Bangladesh. Maitra, P. and S. Pal. 2004. Early Childbirth, Health Inputs and Child Mortality: Recent Evidence from Bangladesh. AHES Annual Conference, Melbourne, Australia. This paper examines the relationship between early childbearing, parental use of health inputs and child mortality in Bangladesh.

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Web Sites The Children Trust, http://www.childrentrust.org/child_law/index.htm. The Children Trust organizes strategically important activities related to development, which in turn will facilitate a sustainable and equitable improvement of life specially for children, women, and the disadvantaged population of Bangladesh through their increased participation in the socioeconomic, cultural, and civic life of the country. Consortium for Street Children: Bangladesh, http://www.streetchildren.org.uk/ resources/details/?type=country&country=35. The mission of the Consortium for Street Children is to improve the lives of street children worldwide in the areas of prevention and early intervention, HIV/AIDS, violence, street child-centered education, and child participation and empowerment. The International Development Research Centre. Environment and Child Survival: Bangladesh, http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-83008-201_900082-1-IDRC_ADM_INFO.html. The international Development Research Centre (IDRC) is a Canadian Crown corporation that works in close collaboration with researchers from the developing world in their search for the means to build healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous societies. An extensive number of risk factors are examined within the themes of water and sanitation; household environment; and parental behavior factors related to children. Save the Children Denmark, http://www.redbarnet.dk/Default.asp?ID=2200. Save the Children Denmark is working together with UDDIPAN to improve living conditions for mothers and children in rural districts in Bangladesh. SOS Children’s Villages, http://www.sos-childrensvillages.org/cgi-bin/sos/jsp/wherewe help.do?cat=/Asia/Bangladesh&lang=en&nav=2.3&site=ZZ. SOS Children’s Villages is an independent, nongovernmental, and social development organization, which has been active in the field of children’s needs, concerns, and rights since 1949. Its activities focus on neglected and abandoned children and orphans, as well as disadvantaged families. UNICEF. Bangladesh: Newsline, http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/bangladesh_ 22673.html. This is the Web site for the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). UNICEF is the driving force that helps build a world where the rights of every child are realized. UNICEF. Bangladesh: Statistics, http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/bangladesh_ bangladesh_statistics.html.This is also the website for UNICEF where statistics on children are found.

Organizations and NGOs Government Organizations Ministry of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs Bangladesh Secretariat Building No. 4 (6th Floor) Dhaka Phone: 7163639-43, 7163645-49 Fax: 880-2-7160781/9365300. Task Force on Repatriated Tribal and Internal Refugees Rehabilitation Chittagong Hill Tracts.

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Ministry of Cultural Affairs Bangladesh Secretariat Building No. 6 (10th Floor) Dhaka Phone: 7163639-43, 7163645-49 Fax: 880-2-7160290, 7169008 Bangla Academy, Bangladesh Shilpokala Academy, Bangladesh National Museum, Nazrul Institute for Arts & Culture. Ministry of Disaster Management & Relief Bangladesh Secretariat Building No. 4 (2nd floor) Dhaka Phone: 9110111-2-9118306 Fax: 880-2-7174148. Directorate of Relief and Rehabilitation, Disaster Management Bureau. Ministry of Education Bangladesh Secretariat Building No. 6 (18th floor) Dhaka Phone: 9110111-2-9118306 Fax: 880-2-7167577 National Academy of Education Management, National Curriculum and Text Book Board, Bangladesh National Commission for UNESCO, Directorate Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, University Grants Commission, Directorate of Technical and Vocational Education. Ministry of Health & Family Welfare Bangladesh Secretariat Building No. 2 (3rd floor) Dhaka Phone: 7163639-43 Fax: 880-2-7169077/8571301 Directorate of Health Services, Directorate of Family Planning. Ministry of Labor and Employment Bangladesh Secretariat Building No. 7(4th & 5th Floor) Dhaka Phone: 7163639-43, 7163645-49 Fax: 9660688 Department of Labor, Office of the Chief Inspector of Factories, Labor Appeal Tribunal. Ministry of Law Justice & Parliamentary Affairs Bangladesh Secretariat Building No. 4 (7th floor) Dhaka Phone: 9110111-2-9118306

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Fax: 880-2-7168557 Email: [email protected]. Ministry of Primary and Mass Education Bangladesh Secretariat Building No. 6 (6th Floor) Dhaka Phone: 7163639-43, 7163645-49 FAX: 880-2-7168871 Directorate of Primary Education, Directorate of Compulsory Primary Education, National Primary Education Academy. Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology Bangladesh Secretariat Building No. 6 (9th floor) Dhaka Phone: 7163639-43, 7163645-49 Fax: 880-2-7169606 Email: [email protected] Web site: http://www.mosict.gov.arg Bangladesh Computer Council, National Museum of Science and Technology. Ministry of Social Welfare Bangladesh Secretariat Building No. 6 (3rd floor) Dhaka Phone: 7163639-43, 7163645-49 Fax: 7168969 Department of Social Service, Bangladesh National Social Welfare Council, Jatiya Protibandhi Unnayan Foundation (National Disabled Development Foundation). Ministry of Women and Children Affairs Bangladesh Secretariat Building No. 6 (2nd floor) Dhaka Fax: 7162892 Department of Women Affairs, Bangladesh Shishu Academy (Bangladesh Children’s Academy) Ministry of Youth and Sports Bangladesh Secretariat Building No. 7 (5th floor) Dhaka Phone: 7163639-48,7163645-49 Fax: 880-2-7160664 Department of Youth Development, Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishtan (Bangladesh Sports Educational Institute), National Sports Council, Diectorate of Sports Nongovernmental Organizations Active Implementing Sub-network on Child Labor Plot 09, Road 16

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Gulshan 01, Dhaka–1212, Bangladesh Project interventions to improve the living conditions for group of child laborers and victims of prostitution and trafficking, with the goal to increase the knowledge and change the attitude on children’s rights. Assistance for Slum Dwellers (ASD) 12-A Mohammadi Road Mohammadpur, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh ASD aims to improve the life of slum dwellers, especially women and children, through access to basic facilities. Bangladesh Coalition for Child Rights Plot 09, Road 16 Gulshan-01, Dhaka-1212, Bangladesh Project interventions to improve the living conditions for group of child laborers and victims of prostitution and trafficking. Bangladesh Mohila Unnayan Sanghstha (Bangladesh Women Development Organization) Ratanganj, Narail 7501, Bangladesh The main activities are child rights, human rights and legal aid, implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and poverty alleviation. Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (Bangladesh Children Rights Forum) House No 24B (2nd Floor), Road No 14A Dhanmondi Residential Area, Dhaka-1209, Bangladesh Apex body of 235 NGOs in Bangladesh working in the child rights sector. BIKASH P.O. Box 64 Kamtapara, Panchagarh 5000, Bangladesh Bikash is committed to the development of disadvantaged children, women, and poor families. Blind Education and Rehabilitation Development Organization (BERDO) 3/1 Road No 11 Rupnagar, Section #5 Mirpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh BERDO is involved with the development of the disabled community in Bangladesh— children, adolescents, and adults suffering from visual, physical, and intellectual impairment—through education, training, social awareness, and treatment. Center for Development Communication 50 Purana Paltan Line, 3rd Floor Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh Raises awareness through radio, television, publications, workshops, seminars, study circles, and networking activities and to produce films, television programs, and television spots that focus on child rights, social development, the environment, and gender and development issues.

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Children’s Television Foundation of Bangladesh (CTFB) Flat # A-3 (3rd Floor) Oriental Log Cabin Mirpur Road Dhaka-1205, Bangladesh CTFB aims to erect a platform for children to understand diverse cultures and the socioeconomic scenario, with a view of overcoming the artificial barriers created out of tension and conflict among some nations. Child Rights Information Network (CRIN) 1 St. John’s Lane London EC1M 4AR A global network that disseminates information about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and Child Rights among NGOs, UN agencies, IGOs, educational institutions, and other child rights experts. Chinnamul Shishu Kishore Sangstha (Organization for Destitute Children and Adolescents) 3rd Floor, Road No 5 Dhanmondi, Dhaka, Bangladesh Provides outreach workers to contact and build relationships with street children. Commitment for Advancement Learning Society Colonel Rahman Sarak Arappur, Jhenidah 7300, Bangladesh Creates a learning society in Bangladesh by protecting the rights of children, youth, and disadvantaged poor people through various development projects and activities. Cultural Movement for Human Development 37, Road-14, Rupnagar, Mirpur Dhaka-1216, Bangladesh Focuses on combating poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, malnutrition, and disease with the age groups between birth and eighteen years of age. Human Development and Research Organization No 47/48 Rahmatpur Colony PO Natun Bazar, Chandpur, Bangladesh Helps poor and disabled children; educates poor children of rural and urban areas and on the streets; and provides health care, education, nutrition, assistance, and treatment and rehabilitation to those children. Human Rights–First the Child Esha Garden, House 23A, Road 113A Gulshan-2, Dhaka-1212, Bangladesh To alleviate the sufferings and thus improve the living condition of millions of underprivileged children/orphan care and to provide safe home and family environment to orphans and children living in difficulties. Institute of Neglected and Oppressed Children’s Environmental Networking and Training 156/1 Shuvechya, Ground Floor (West Side)

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East Subid Bazar, Sylhet-3100, Bangladesh To build a child friendly Bangladesh and to establish child rights on the basis of UNCRC. Integrated Social Development Effort (ISDE) Bangladesh House No 339, Road No 14, Block-B, Chandgaon R/A Chittagong-4212, Bangladesh The major activities are nonformal education, human and skill development training, and women and child development. Jesh Foundation Alta Plaza, House No 1, Road No 10 Dhanmondi, Dhaka Ensure social justice through awareness building on fundamental human rights and child rights. Implement CRC in Bangladesh. Parbatya Bouddha Mission (Hill Buddhist Mission) Pilotpara, Kamalchari, Khagrachari Sadar, Khagrachari Hill Tracts, Bangladesh The organization working for the socioeconomic education and cultural development of minority indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, emphasizing children. Rural Development Society P.O. Daspara, Bauphal, Patuakhali, Bangladesh Improves awareness of child rights, primary education, and nutrition education. Save the Children Australia–Bangladesh House No 3/1, Road No 8 Dhanmondi, Dhaka, Bangladesh Aims to place the children and anticipate their needs, interest, and perspectives at the center of socioeconomic and political programs. Save the Children UK–Bangladesh House No 28, Road No 16 (New) Dhanmondi, Dhaka, GPO Box 55, Bangladesh Working with local partners (NGOs and government agencies) to promote children’s rights in Bangladesh. Save the Children US–Bangladesh House No 35A, Road No 9A Dhanmondi, Dhaka, Bangladesh Working with local NGOs and research organizations. Social Advancement Society Vedvedi, Rangapani Road Rangamati-4500, Rangamati Hill Tracts, Bangladesh. Aims to provide need-based support to disregarded hill peoples. Social Welfare Advancement Brilliant Association Mirashi, Chunarughat, Habiganj-3320, Bangladesh

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Aims are to assist poor people, especially women and children, through various activities. Underprivileged Children’s Educational Programs (UCEP) Plot No 2 & 3 Mirpur-2, Dhaka-1216, Bangladesh One of the premier national nongovernmental development organizations. Has been providing services to the underprivileged working children of the country for the last twenty-seven years: four to five years general education, six months to two years technical training assistance in job placement assistance for students. UNICEF Bangladesh BSL Complex 1 Mintoo Road Dhaka-1000 Universal primary education, nonformal education, and adult literacy Work Development Center Razzak Mohori House Terokhadia, Rajshahi Cantonment Rajshahi-6202, Bangladesh. Coordinate activities involving child rights, women rights, primary education, child health, and anti child-trafficking.

Selected Bibliography Ahmed, A. 1996. Bangladesh Struggles to End Flesh Trade. Outlook 8 in Bangkok Post. Bangkok, Thailand. Ahmed, F. 2002. The Girl Child: Bangladesh Scenario. Steps Towards Development. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Adhunika. Ali, A. K. M. M. and R. Sarkar. 1997. Misplaced Childhood: A Study on the Street Child Prostitutes in Dhaka City. Integrated Community and Industrial Development Initiative, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Ali, S. 1998. Trafficking in Children and their Commercial Sexual Exploitation in Prostitution and Other Intolerable Forms of Child Labor in Bangladesh. Country Report Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh: National Women Lawyers’ Association. Amin, S., M. S. Quayes, and J. M. Rives. 2004. Poverty and Other Determinants of Child Labor in Bangladesh. Southern Economic Journal 70(4):876–892. Bangladesh Ministry of Women and Children Affairs. 2000. Project Proforma (PP), Child Development: Coordinated Programme to Combat Child Trafficking (pilot project). Dhaka, Bangladesh: Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, Government of Bangladesh. Bangladesh National Women Lawyer Association. 1996. Movement against flesh trade: Beware of the Traffickers—Protect Women and Children. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Bangladesh National Women Lawyer Association. Bangladesh National Women Lawyer Association. 1997. Movement against flesh trade. Child Workers in Asia 13:9–11. Bangladesh National Women Lawyer Association. 1998. Special Bulletin. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Bangladesh National Women Lawyer Association

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Bissell, S. 2001. Young Garment Workers in Bangladesh: Raising the Rights Question. Development 44(2): 75–80. Bissell, S. 1997. Little women in Bangladesh—working children? Women in Asia 16:12–16. Blanchet, T. 1996. Lost Innocence, Stolen Childhoods. Dhaka: University Press Limited. Boyden, J. and W. Myers. 1995. Exploring Alternative Approaches to Combating Child Labor: Case Studies from Developing Countries. Florence: UNICEF. Child Workers in Asia. 1997. Regional Field Workers Exchange Programme on Child Domestic Workers. Bangkok, Thailand: Child Workers in Asia. Crawford, S. 1995. Child Labor in South Asia: A Review of the Literature. Kathmandu, Nepal: UNICEF. de Dios, A. J. 1997. Trafficking in Women in Asia: A Human Rights Crisis. In L. Akanda, F. Kabir, K. Salahuddin, and I. Shamim, eds. Proceedings of the Consultation Meeting on Trafficking and Prostitution in the Context of Violence against Women and Children Center for Women and Children Studies. Dhaka, Bangladesh. Delap, E. 2001. Economic and Cultural Forces in the Child Labor Debate: Evidence from Urban Bangladesh. The Journal of Development Studies 37(4): 1–22. Deolalikar, A. B. and W. P. Vijverberg. 1987. A Test of Heterogeneity of Family and Hired Labor in Asian Agriculture. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 49(3):291–303. Falkus, M., S. Blackburn, H. Brasted, A. Kaur, and D. Wright. 1997. Child Labor in Asia: Some Perspectives on Selected Countries. Canberra: Aus AID. Fauveau, V., A. Briend, J. Chakraborty, and A. M. Sarder. 1990. The Contribution of Severe Child Mortality in Bangladesh: Implications for Targeting Nutritional Interventions. Food Nutrition Bulletin 12: 215–19. Giani, L. 2006. Migration and Education: Child Migrants in Bangladesh. Working Paper Number 33. Sussex, UK: Sussex Centre for Migration Research. University of Sussex. Gupta, T. D. 2000. Preliminary Directory of Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) involved in Combating Trafficking in and Sexual Exploitation of Children and Women. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Action Against Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Children, Bangladesh Chapter. Hossain, H. 1997. Trafficking in Women and Children from Bangladesh: Causes and Measures for Combating Trafficking. Dhaka: Ain o Salish Kendro. ILO-IPEC and Karen C. Tumlin. 1998. Overview of Child Trafficking for Labor Exploitation in the Region. Working Papers on Child Labor in Asia. Vol 2. Bangkok: ILO, 2001. ILO-IPEC and HKW. 1998. Women and Media Seminar: Journalists’ Encounter on Child Labor in Asia. Bangkok: ILO-IPEC. Integrated Community and Industrial Development Initiative. Undated. Study on the Socio-Economic Dimensions of Trafficking in Girl Children. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Integrated Community and Industrial Development Initiative. Kabir, A. H. M. 2001. The State of Violence against Children in Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Law Watch, a Centre for Studies on Human Rights Law. Khan, M. R. Undated. Situation Analysis on Trafficking of Women and Children in Bangladesh. Shishu Angina. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Child and Women Development Center. Khan, Z. R. and H. K. Arefeen. 1989–1990. Report on Prostitution in Bangladesh. Dhaka Bangladesh: Centre for Social Studies, Dhaka University.

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Khatun, T. 1998. Child Labor in the Bangladeshi Commercial Sector. Child Workers in Asia 14:4–5. Kumar, D. 1989. Child Work and Family Life in South Asia. Bangkok, Thailand: ILO/LAPTAP. Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid. 1993. The Flesh Trade: The Trafficking of Women and Children in Pakistan. Karachi, Pakistan: Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid. Mahbub, A. and M. U. Rahman. 1996. Annotative Inventory and Mapping of Service Areas on Working Children in Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh: BASF. Mhatre, S. 1995. Child Labor Legislation in South Asia 1881–1995: A Documentation and Analysis. Kathmandu, Nepal: UNICEF. Mia, A. 1989. Our Unfortunate Children as Laborers. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Underprivileged Children’s Educational Programs. Mia, A. 1990. Child Workers get Education and a way of Better Living. Dhaka, Bangladesh: UCEP–Bangladesh. Mia, A. undated. A Promising Path: UCEP Non-Formal Education in Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh: UCEP. Mitra, S. N., Al-sabir Ahmed, A. R. Cross, and K. Jamil. 1997. Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 1996–1997. Dhaka, Bangladesh: National Institute of Population Research and Training. National Institute of Population Research and Training. 2004. Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) 2004. (Preliminary Report). Dhaka, Bangladesh: Mitra and Associates and Macro International Inc. National Youth Bureau Office of the Prime Minister. 1988. Child Abuse and Neglect: Prevention and Protection of Working Children and Abandoned Children. Bangkok, Thailand: National Youth Bureau Office of the Prime Minister. Policy Research for Development Alternative. 1999. Fact-Finding Missions on Trafficking in Women and Children from Bangladesh to India and Pakistan. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Narigrantha Prabartana Pradhan, G. 1988. Working Children in South Asia: Realities and Challenges. First South Asian Regional Seminar–Workshop on Working Children. Child Workers in Nepal. Kathmandu, Nepal. Rahman, A. 1992. Disaster and Development: A Study in Institution Building in Bangladesh. In H. Hossain, C. P. Dodge, and F. H. Abed, eds. From Crisis to Development: Coping with Disasters in Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh: University Press Ltd., 352–71. Rahman, M. M., R. Khanam, and A. Nur Uddin. 1999. Child Labor in Bangladesh: A Critical Appraisal of Harkin’s Bill and the MOU-Type Schooling Program. Journal of Economic Issues 33(4):985–1003. Research Evaluation Associates for Development. 2000. Need Assessment Survey of the Disadvantaged Women and Children in the Urban Areas of Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Concerned Bangladesh. Salmon, C. 2005. Child Labor in Bangladesh. Journal of Developing Societies 21(1– 2):33–54. Shamim, I. 1997. Proceedings of the Fact-Finding Meeting and the National Workshop on Trafficking in Women and Children. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Center for Women and Children Studies. Shamim, I. 1998. Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Children: Bangladesh Perspective. Cross Border Workshop to Combat Trafficking, November 16–18, 1998. Siliguri, Center for Women and Children Studies, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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Shamim, I. 1993. Child Trafficking and Sale. Report submitted to Bangladesh Shisu Adhikar Forum as part of the Project of Case Studies on Child Abuse, Exploitation and Oppression. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Center for Women and Children Studies. Shamim, I. and F. Kabir. 1998. Child Trafficking: The Underlying Dynamics. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Center for Women and Children Studies. Siddiqui, F. and H. A. Patrinos. 1995. Child Labor Issues, Causes and Intervention. HR and Operations Policy working paper, World Bank. Washington, DC: World Bank. Souza, J.D. 1996. Trafficking from Bangladesh to other countries. Child Workers in Asia 12:16–19. Stalker, P. 1996. Child Labor in Bangladesh. Dhaka, Bangladesh: UNICEF. Trapp, E. M., J. Williams, J. Menken, and S. Fisher. 2004. Disappearing Sex-Bias in Child Health in Bangladesh. Working Paper Number PAC 2004-003. Boulder, Colorado: Institute of Behavioral Science, Population Aging Center, University of Colorado at Boulder. UCEP. 1995. A Promising Path: Education, Skill Training and Employment. Dhaka: UCEP. UN High Commission for Human Rights. 1995. Convention for Human Rights of the Child: Bangladesh. Geneva, Switzerland: Committee on the Rights of the Child. UNICEF. 1997. The State of the World’s Children 1997: Focus on Child Labor. Oxford: Oxford University Press. U.S. Department of State. 2000. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices–1999, 25 February. Vlassoff, M. 1991. An Assessment of Studies Linking Child Labor and Fertility Behaviour in Less Developed Countries. In R. Kanbargi, ed. Child Labor in the IndianSubcontinent: Dimensions and implications. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Ward, Kathryn, Fahmida Rahman, A.K.M. Saiful Islam, Rifat Akhter, and Nashid Kamal. 2004. The Effects of Global Economics Restructuring on Urban Women’s Work and Income-Generating Strategies in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Critical Sociology 30(1):63–102. World Bank. 2005. Children and Youth: A Resource Guide. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Vision. undated. The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Street Children: World Vision. http://www.cwa.tnet.co.th/References/ref_bangladesh.html.

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BHUTAN T. W. Maxwell The future of the nation lies in the hands of our younger generations. It is, therefore, crucial that they live up to our high expectations and ensure the continued well-being (of the people) and security of the nation. His Majesty former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck

NATIONAL PROFILE Bhutan is a small (about 300 miles east–west and 200 miles north–south), landlocked country sandwiched between two great populations: the People’s Republic of China (Tibet) to the north and India to the south. In the 1950s, Bhutan’s third Druk Gyalpo (King in Bhutan) led the country out of isolation. It remained an essentially medieval society until the 1960s, and traces of this harsh lifestyle remain even today. Bhutan was established as a hereditary and absolute monarchy in 1907, but in recent times Bhutan’s fourth king has moved toward democracy and toward establishing international relations. Since 1961, Bhutan

ASIA AND OCEANIA

has begun modernization using a series of Five Year Plans (5YPs) based upon foreign aid. At that time Bhutan was extremely poor, with a per capita annual income estimated in 1961 at US$51. Subsistence agriculture dominated the economy, as it still does in mountain regions. Very few children attended secular schools, as the only education system was via longestablished Mahayana Buddhist monasteries, set up mostly for boys. There were also virtually no drivable roads, and travel was largely on foot. Movement around the country was further hindered by the deeply incised, narrow valleys of the Himalayas, running north to south. Even now, it takes three days to drive 500 kilometers from the capital Thimphu in the west to the easternmost town. The people of Bhutan have many origins, but most are Mongoloid or Indo-Mongoliod. An influx of Nepali people, the Lhotshampas, also settled in the foothills in the twentieth century. Bhutan’s current population is estimated at around 672,425 (Bhutan Census). Mahayana Buddhism is the state religion. Buddhists comprise about 70 percent of the population. Maroon-robed monks and religious symbols such as chortens and prayer flags are common. Some lhakhangs (temples) remain from the seventh century. The head abbot, His Holiness the Je Kempo, leads the monastic bodies in Bhutan. He is highly revered. The Lhotshampas follow Hinduism. Remnants of religions such as Bon also remain integrated into Bhutan’s Buddhist tradition. The official language is Dzongkha. Dzongkha and English are the languages of instruction from the first days in school at age six. However, a range of other languages is spoken. Sarchopa is a notable minority language in the east, as is Nepali in the south. Educated Bhutanese often speak four or five languages. The government’s focus on Dzongkha reflects its goal to create a nation based upon Drukpa (eastern) cultural traditions, exhibited in traditional architecture, dress, and official language. English, meanwhile, is a key modernizing influence. Bhutan’s geography and diverse history have lead to considerable variations in both industry and cultural heritage. Women’s weaving of silk (in the east) and wool (central) is highly valued and now forms a cottage industry. Although more than 80 percent of the country is forest, agriculture is the main employment sector. This has decreased from threequarters (1998) to two-thirds (2004) as people find work in industry (6 percent to 10 percent in the same period) and services (9 percent to 16 percent). The private sector is undeveloped. Unemployment, virtually unknown in 1990, has risen from 1.4 percent (1998) to 2.5 percent (2004). Sixty percent of the latter is youth unemployment (5.5 percent in 2004), which will continue to grow. Females are twice as likely to be unemployed. More than 36 percent of those who are employed are unpaid family workers. Adult men and women roughly share workloads and responsibility for children. Life expectancy has grown from fifty-eight

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years (1990) to sixty-three years (2001). Women, more than men, inherit property in some areas. The gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has reached US$775 (2004). Although this represents a high rate of recent growth for Bhutan, about one-third of the population remains below the national poverty line (Nu740/month = US$16.51/month). This is largely a rural phenomenon, with 38 percent below the national poverty line (compared with 4.2 percent urban). Rural livelihoods are still made from subsistence agriculture in mountainous dispersed communities. Subsistence farming engaged 79 percent of population from just 8 percent of land under cultivation. Extreme poverty is, however, rare and few suffer from hunger or homelessness. Forty-two percent of the population is below the age of fifteen, and at 2.1 percent the population growth rate is one of the highest in Asia. This growth has been brought about by the halving of the infant mortality rate and doubling of the life expectancy between 1970 and 2000. These achievements in health are paralleled by those in education where, starting from close to zero in the 1950s, now more than 90 percent of children (48 percent girls) are enrolled in primary school. Secondary education statistics are not as spectacular (see Table 3.1). Despite its physical barriers and low incomes, the Kingdom of Bhutan has experienced rapid development, which can be attributed to the (a) dynamic leadership of the kings of Bhutan; (b) its rich resource base, such as hydropower and biodiversity, and low population density; (c) wellfunctioning administrative machine and community organization free of corruption; (d) long-term support of various donors; and (e) primacy of the Bhutanese culture (Ura 2003, pp. 2–3). The fourth king’s guiding notion of Gross National Happiness (GNH) has captured the imagination of many and is followed by Ministries in the Royal Government of Bhutan (RGoB). Following GNH, the nation’s prosperity is not gauged against its economic fortunes but ultimately by the happiness of its people. The government aims to encompass both cultural traditions and modern developments. Table 3.1. Percentage of Rural and Urban Education Indicators Education indicator

Rural

Urban

Gross primary enrollment rates Gross lower secondary enrollment rates Gross middle secondary enrollment rates Gross higher secondary enrollment rates School participation rate (six to twelve years old) School participation rate (thirteen to nineteen years old)

88.3 47.7 36.9 7.0 65.3 46.3

109.0 84.8 77.5 39.9 89.0 77.3

Source: RGoB 2005, p. 55.

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The series of Five Year Plans from 1961 has provided the basis for development in the following phases: 1. Road construction and internationalization of relations (1961–73) creating a single east–west road across the country. Bhutan joined the United Nations (UN) in 1971; 2. Establishment and expansion of health, education and agricultural services (1973–83); 3. Revenue-generating investment in hydroelectric and mineral-based projects (1983–87), including the Chukka hydro project; 4. Expansion of air links and digital communications (1988–98) to bring global communication to Bhutan. Satellite television was introduced in 1999, and 5. From 1998, the emphasis appears to be on democratization and globalization (Ura 2003, p. 4).

Several principles have guided development in the kingdom and reflect the characteristics of the Bhutanese. These include economic self-reliance, preservation of the environment, regionally balanced development to address rural poverty, and decentralization and community empowerment. Cultural preservation, the fifth principle, identifies the idea that the Drupkpa (western) heritage will characterize Bhutanese culture (Ura 2003, pp. 5–6; RGoB 1999). With the focus on development over the last five or six decades, the government has worked to provide families with basic support services. These include the development of a legal, health, and education infrastructure for a largely dispersed population in rugged terrains. The decentralized dual systems of traditional and western-style medicine are government initiatives. Health care, like education, is free and has seen substantial improvements (see Table 3.2). There are few Bhutanese agencies outside the government supporting children and families, but UN agencies, such as UNICEF, WHO, and UNDP, and NGOs, like Save the Children (US), Danida, and Helvitas, have been long-term supporters. India has provided continuing support and is Bhutan’s major bilateral development partner. Similarly, a legal system has been developed culminating in the adoption of a penal code. Bhutan is a signatory to the UN’s Elimination of the Discrimination against Women, and the Rights of the Child. Young people constitute 57 percent of the population. Three groups of children and youth are most vulnerable in Bhutan. First, many children, primarily in the southeast, will have to catch up on schooling because of unrest from insurgent camps built in Bhutan by those opposing the Indian government in Assam prior to 2003. Some families have been able to obtain schooling, however, by moving north into the central area. A second group includes children who live in the remotest parts of

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TABLE 3.2. Health and Related Statistics in Bhutan, 1984–2004 1984 (Alt. year)

1994 (Alt. year)

2004 (latest)

2.1 (1985) 5.9 7.7

2.9 (1990) 5.6 3.8

2.5 4.7 (2003) 2.6 (2000)

142

70.7

60.5 (2000)

162

97

84 (2001)

38 (1988) 38 (1989) 56 (1989) 4.1 (1989) 65 (1983) — — 46 (1979) —

17 (1999) 40 (1999) 2.6 (1999) — 45 (1990) — 59 (1992) 57 (1992)

19 (2000) — — —