UN / SOWC LAUNCH

UNICEF today launched the annual "State of the World's Children" report "Adolescents: An Age of Opportunity." With 20 years of strong investment producing "stunning" gains for children up to the age of ten, including a 33 percent drop in under-five mortality rates, the UN calls for equal focus on the world's 1.2 billion adolescents to break entrenched cycles of poverty and inequity. UNTV/FILE

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:02:10
• Production Date: 25 February 2011
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND - UNICEF
• Subject Topical: EDUCATION; HUMAN RIGHTS
• MAMS Id: U110225f

Description

STORY: UN / SOWC LAUNCH
TRT: 2.10
SOURCE: UNTV / UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 25 FEBRUARY 2011, NEW YORK CITY

Shotlist

RECENT 2011, N UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK CITY

1. Wide shot, exterior United Nations HQ

25 FEBRUARY 2011, NEW YORK CITY

2. Wide shot, press conference
3. Med shot, journalists
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Hilde Frafjord Johnson, Deputy-Executive Director, UNICEF:
“Almost half the world’s adolescents do not attend secondary schools. One hundred and fifty million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are engaged in child labor. An untold number of adolescents are trafficked with an estimated one million exploited for cheap labor or the sex trade every year. Hundreds of thousands associated with armed groups as soldiers, as spies, as messengers, as sex slaves. And around 70 million girls and women have undergone female genital mutilation.”
5. Cutaway, journalists
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Hilde Frafjord Johnson, Deputy-Executive Director, UNICEF:
“The impact of these deprivations are profound not only on adolescents themselves but on their, on our societies. As this report shows so clearly adolescence is a pivot point. An opportunity to consolidate the gains we are making in early childhood or risk seeing those gains wiped out.”
7. Cutaway, journalists
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Hilde Frafjord Johnson, Deputy-Executive Director, UNICEF:
“Adolescents are not just victims. When given a chance to make their voices heard to influence the decisions that affect their lives and exercise their right to participate they can quite literally change the world and their world. We cannot continue to ignore adolescents. We cannot continue to pretend they are of marginal importance in our fight against poverty and deprivation, it is not true. In fact we cannot consign an entire generation to lives of missed opportunity and lost potential.”

FILE – UNICEF - 21 NOVEMBER 2010, PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI

9. Med shot, boys sitting by a bucket and playing with water
10. Med shot, boy walking by a sewage canal

FILE – UNICEF - 28-29 JANUARY 2010, PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI

11. Med shot, girl washing clothes in a bucket

FILE – UNICEF - 8 FEBRUARY 2010, CHINWAGHARI VILLAGE, NIGER

12. Wide shot, kids sitting at the back of a donkey cart

FILE – UNICEF - 11 MAY 2010, HAMUKUNGU, UGANDA

13. Wide shot, little girl standing in the river, filling water in her can

FILE – UNICEF - UNKNOWN DATE AND LOCATION

14. Wide shot, adolescents at the stage during the Children's Climate Change Forum

Storyline

With 20 years of strong investment producing “stunning” gains for children up to the age of 10, including a 33 per cent drop in under-five mortality rates, the United Nations is calling for equal focus on the world’s 1.2 billion adolescents to break entrenched cycles of poverty and inequity.

The annual State of the World’s Children report, launched today in New York by UNICEF’s Deputy-Executive Director Hilde Frafjord Johnson, cites one startling example: in Brazil the lives of 26,000 children under one were saved between 1998 and 2008, leading to a sharp decrease in infant mortality, yet in the same period 81,000 adolescents aged 15-19 were murdered.

The vast majority of today’s adolescents, 88 per cent, live in developing countries, and the report catalogues “in heart-wrenching detail” the array of dangers they face: injuries that kill 400,000 of them each year; early pregnancy and childbirth, a primary cause of death for teenage girls; pressures that keep 70 million out of school; exploitation, violent conflict and the worst kind of abuse at the hands of adults.

It also examines the dangers posed by emerging trends like climate change, whose intensifying effects in many developing countries already undermine so many adolescents’ well-being, and by labour trends, which reveal a profound lack of employment opportunities for the young, especially those in poor countries.

The report calls for targeted investments in education and training; expanding opportunities for youth to participate in national forums and other avenues to make their voices heard; promoting laws, policies and programmes to protect their rights and enable them to overcome barriers to essential services; and stepping up the fight against poverty and inequity through child-sensitive programmes to prevent adolescents from being prematurely catapulted into adulthood.

Although adolescents around the world are generally healthier today than in the past, many health risks remain significant, including injuries, eating disorders and substance abuse. It is estimated that around one in every five adolescents suffers from a mental health or behavioural problem.

Youth unemployment remains a concern in almost every country. An increasingly technological labour market requires skills that many young people do not possess. In many countries large teenage populations are a unique demographic asset that is often overlooked, the report stresses. By investing in adolescent education and training, countries can reap a large and productive workforce, contributing significantly to the growth of national economies.