Unicef works for better tomorrow for our kids
A new agreement between the Union Government and UNICEF promises to check violence against children and reduce the rate of HIV/AIDS among adolescents in the next five years, reports Chetan Chauhan.
A new agreement between the Union Government and United Nation’s Children Fund promises to check violence against children and reduce the rate of HIV/AIDS among adolescents in the next five years.
To slow down the rate of infection of HIV/AIDS in the age group of 0-18 years, the programme plans to provide access to condoms to 70 million out-of-school adolescents and young people, and treatment to all identified HIV-positive infants.
The agreement signed between the Women and Child Development ministry and the UN is to help India to meet millennium development goals (MDGs) by 2015. India is lagging behind in meeting most of the MDG targets.
The UN will help the government set up child protection units in different states under the Integrated Child Protection Scheme, besides conducting studies on violence against children.
According to the Study on Child Abuse released in 2007, Indian children experience high level of abuse in schools. “The country programme for 2012 will collaborate with the education programme on promoting schools as zones of peace in unstable environments,” the agreement said.
Special focus will be on reaching out to SC/ST children, with emphasis on girls. “Strategies will be developed and norms set to ensure that SC/ST children can effectively complete secondary education,” the agreement said.
It also advocates a national policy on multi-lingual education to improve “transition rates” of socially excluded groups to higher education. In states, where gender gap in enrolment is more than 10 per cent, the UN plans to intervene and encourage girls to get enrolled in schools.