world

To preserve the rights of children is an important issue related with the development of countries and nations and the future of humankind. As children are immature mentally and physically, they need protection by families, communities and states.

However, a large number of children are now losing their lives and becoming disabled or orphaned due to wars and disputes around the world.

The Gaza Strip of Palestine has turned into a “graveyard of children”. Each time Israel makes a military attack on it, many children are killed or injured. However, the Israelis are justifying their atrocities while clamouring for “exercise of the right to self-defence”. It is the logic of the Israeli murderers that there is no civilian in the Gaza Strip and all residents over 3 years old are “terrorists”.

The child labour issue is getting more serious worldwide, arousing concern of the international community.

Last June, the International Labour Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund released a report to note that nearly 138 million children were subjected to child labour across the world last year.

Meanwhile, the US styling itself the “beacon of human rights” is becoming a slave labour site and a living hell for children.

In the country, children are forced to medieval labour at slaughterhouses and tobacco farms and do such dangerous and hard works as operating machines at factories and repairing roofs. Among them are over 250 000 immigrant children.

The annual infant mortality rate is over 5 percent in the US. According to a research report published in the pediatric magazine of the American Medical Association in March last year, the children in Chicago generally live in the lead-contaminated environment and nearly 130 000 children under 6 years old drink plumbic water.

The law enforcement and judicial organs are reduced to accomplices to child sexual abuse. According to a survey result of The Washington Post, from 2005 to 2022, at least 1 800 state and local law enforcement officials were indicted for crimes related with child sexual abuse.

In Japan, it became a social trend to consider children a nuisance and abuse them. The cases of child abuse number hundreds of thousands every year, and some parents kill or abandon their children in cold blood regarding them as useless.

In addition, children account for about 28 percent of the victims of human trafficking around the world.

Those who are suffering the most from starvation, poverty and different kinds of infectious diseases are none other than children.

A red warning light is on for the issue of children’s rights, calling for an immediate solution.