Global trade keeps a billion children in poverty,says Unicef

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=455868
Global trade keeps a billion children in poverty, says Unicef

By Maxine Frith, Social Affairs Correspondent
22 October 2003

International targets to reduce child poverty are going to be missed because globalised trade and cuts to aid budgets are creating an ever-greater chasm between the richest and poorest countries.

More than one billion young people in the developing world are now living in conditions of severe deprivation, according to a report for the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef). Tens of millions of children in developing countries still do not have access to basic human needs such as food, water and sanitation, the study found.<snip>

A UN declaration in 2000 pledged that by 2015, it would halve the proportion of people whose income was less than one dollar a day and achieve a similar reduction in the number of people suffering from hunger. The declaration also pledged to cut the death rate among the under-fives by two thirds and ensure that all children could complete primary school.<snip>

Campaigners warned that globalisation, and pressure on developing countries to liberalise trade, were adding to poverty.<snip>