Right of Every Child – Right to Food and Water
We all are living in the age of colossal development. Our needs and wants have taken different turns. We want a cell phone, tablet computer, plush restaurants to eat in and designer clothes to adorn. We just manage to gulp in something in our mouth because it gives us energy. We drink water sometimes. We are more used to milk shakes, juices or high grade alcohol.
We go to parties and many a times even waste food and then throw it away in trash.
At this very time a child in some remote area of Africa is crying its heart out because it hasn’t eaten anything for a long time, hasn’t drunk water since yesterday and hasn’t been fed by its mother because she is unable to lactate. This is the plight of the world today. The whole world is a living example of an irony. The shocking figures are that more than 1 billion children are deprived of basic needs like food and water and more than 200 million are suffering from chronic malnutrition; type of malnourishment where the chances of improvement are minimal even if the child is fed properly. Global Hunger Index shows mostly Asian and African countries in its list.
Every year nearly 1.5 million kids die because of consumption of unsafe water. Intake of impure water causes fatal diseases like Diarrhea, Tuberculosis and Schistosomiasis; which cause maximum number of child deaths.
The UN Convention of rights of the children has worked tremendously in the regions of Africa and Southeast Asia to reduce starvation and to increase the availability of safe drinking water. Statistics say that there has been a 28% reduction in the number of child deaths, since the last decade. The Right says that -
• Food and Water must be available
• Food and Water must be accessible
• Food and Water must be consumable
To have an influential future we ought to have a strong present. We should all work together and try to eradicate hanger and thirstiness forever.
