LESOTHO: Cash for kids
This month, 5,000 orphans and vulnerable children in three districts of Lesotho will start benefiting from a new government scheme to alleviate the poverty preventing them from going to school, having enough to eat and staying healthy. About 55 percent of the estimated 180,000 orphaned children in the tiny mountain kingdom, which has the third highest HIV prevalence in the world, have lost one or both parents to the virus.
BENIN: Can subsidised caesareans cut maternal deaths?
Benin’s government is in its first week of helping women pay for caesarean operations in an effort to reduce the number of women dying during childbirth every year, estimated at 2,000 according to the government.
PAKISTAN: Malnutrition, low immunity threaten children’s lives
Malnutrition – combined with diarrhea, pneumonia and tuberculosis (TB) – is the biggest cause of child mortality in Tharparkar District in Pakistan’s southern Sindh Province. Infant and child mortality (children under 12 months and 5 years respectively) is much worse here than the national average, according to local officials. The figures compare unfavorably with Pakistan’s overall infant mortality rate of 75 per 1,000 live births. Each year 396,000 infants die, according to the Population Reference Bureau, a US-based body
Pakistan flogging video draws international concern
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has joined a chorus of criticism being levied in response to a grainy video of Pakistani Taliban flogging a young girl. “This is just unacceptable. While I appreciate all these different systems and traditions in many different countries, the respecting and upholding [of] basic human rights, this is most important,” Ban said. The video has enraged rights advocates and led recently reinstated Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikar Chaudhry to order an investigation.
SRI LANKA: Pregnant women at greater risk in conflict
Thousands of pregnant women caught up in the fighting between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are in urgent need of healthcare, according to aid workers. “Women do not stop getting pregnant or giving birth to their babies even when on the move or when living in camps,” Lene Christiansen, country representative for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)
Young Indians called to political action by Mumbai attacks
The gun assault in Mumbai, India, that left more than 170 people dead has served as a call to action for young people in India who have used the Internet and social media to rally others to vote. Inspired in part by the election of the relatively youthful Barack Obama in the U.S., young Indian voters are looking for leaders to solve the problems of government dysfunction and national security.
BURKINA FASO: WFP expands food voucher pilot
Families in Burkina Faso’s second-largest city, Bobo-Dioulasso, have begun receiving US$3 vouchers that can be cashed in for maize, cooking oil, salt, sugar and soap. The distribution is the second half of a World Food Programme (WFP) urban hunger-alleviation experiment launched on 13 February in the capital, Ouagadougou, to help people cope with high food prices.
INDONESIA: Government comment raises confusion on routine immunisation
A remark by Indonesia’s health minister could undermine the routine immunisation programme – a key component in containing outbreaks of preventable diseases among children. Routine immunisation coverage has already deteriorated in the past few years, say health specialists. About half-a-million children in Indonesia receive no immunisation by their first birthday, a recent government survey stated, while another 2.4 million children are only partially immunised.
Male child abductions haunt Chinese families
Chinese desire for male offspring combined with the government’s restrictive reproductive polices has resulted in a thriving trade in stolen male children. Chinese authorities claim the problem affects only about 2,500 youngsters a year, but children and families’ advocates believe abducted children might number in the hundreds of thousands.