Dear Delegates Of The United Nation,

Could you imagine your 4-year-old daughter dying of a preventable disease or dying because there isn’t enough food to feed her? Well, I bet you can imagine that, because you know that it happens. You know that ten million children under 5 die from preventable diseases each year. As a 13-year-old child from Canada I wish this was unimaginable in our world, and, until recently, I thought it was. I, Chanda Azeyixoway am here to tell you how I think the world has done on the 1989 Convention of Children’s Rights.

In my school we have been learning about children’s rights. We learned about the 41 points that were made during the 1989 Convention. I learned that we have the right to basic needs, freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom to worship and freedom to a safe place to only begin the list of rights we, as children have. I learned that although rules are in place for equal treatment of children, they are disregarded in many places.

So how well have we done? Well, there are some places that have done well, and others that have not. Under-5 and infant mortality rates have been declining over the past few years. 63 countries have achieved a 33% reduction in infant mortality rates, as over 100 countries have lowered the deaths of children under 5 by 20%. Also, 90 million newborns are protected from a loss of learning ability through the iodination of salt, which prevents iodine deficiency disorders. Those are some examples of what the world is doing right. However, the world needs a lot of improvement. Violence in homes for instance. 6 out of 10 children in Europe and central Asia report stories of violent or aggressive behavior in their homes. That has to be stopped. How can children feel safe with that happening? They can’t. That has got to stop. And what about school? More than 100 million children do not have access to basic schooling, 60 million of them girls! HIV, half the new cases in HIV are in people 15 to 24 years old. An estimated 1.4 million children under 14 live with HIV across the world. More than 13 million children 14 or younger have been orphaned by AIDS. This cannot keep happening. Families are torn apart by AIDS, and the results of AIDS. Further steps to inform people like young girls about AIDS and how it is transmitted and prevented should be taken. Poverty and malnutrition in young people is a huge issue. 149 million children suffer from malnutrition in developing countries. Better than 177 million, but still a very unsettling, unsatisfactory number. 1.1 billion people in the world do not even have access to safe drinking water! This all has to stop.