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COMMUNICATIONS:
New Web Site to Boost the Rights
of the Child
Felipe Seligman
BRASILIA, (IPS) - Latin
America produces more food per
person than most other parts of
the world, which makes it even
more unacceptable for children
to be dying of hunger and
malnutrition, said the regional
director of UNICEF, Nils
Kastberg, in Brazil.
UNICEF launched a new web site,
Acción 17, in Spanish and
Portuguese, aimed at providing a
space for journalists and
experts in IberoAmerica to share
ideas, information and
experiences on communication in
favour of children's rights.
The initiative takes its name
from Article 17 of the
Convention on the Rights of the
Child, an international treaty
ratified by all of the countries
of IberoAmerica (Latin America,
Spain and Portugal).
Article 17 says that the state
parties ”recognise the important
function performed by the mass
media and shall ensure that the
child has access to information
and material...especially those
aimed at the promotion of his or
her social, spiritual and moral
well-being and physical and
mental health.”
Acción 17, which was launched
Thursday, is the product of an
association between the regional
office of UNICEF (the United
Nations Children's Fund) for
Latin America and the Caribbean
and the News Agency for
Children's Rights (ANDI), a
Brazilian non-governmental
organisation.
The issue of hunger was the key
focus of the press conference at
which the new web site was
presented, during the 32nd
session of the U.N. Standing
Committee on Nutrition (SCN),
held Monday through Friday in
Brasilia, the capital of Brazil.
”We chose the Committee's
session (for launching the web
site) because the question of
nutrition is fundamental in
debating the rights of the
child,” said Marcus Fuchs,
planning director at ANDI.
”There are currently around 4.2
million malnourished children in
Latin America. No human
development is possible unless
we overcome the denial of the
right to nutrition.”
Acción 17 was conceived of as a
sort of virtual meeting-point
for reporters and a service to
enrich news items and inform the
public in a more effective
manner on the problems facing
children. ”Everyone has the
right to information,” Fuchs
underlined.
Besides the opportunity to
exchange experiences, the web
site offers a databank of
sources and support material on
journalism and children's
rights, as well as a library
where documents, reports and
statistics on children and
adolescents from the countries
of IberoAmerica will be
available.
In addition, the web site will
promote forums, surveys and
on-line dialogues.
The idea behind the project is
to turn journalists into
specialists on these issues,
said Kastberg.
Nutrition and the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) were
the main issues mentioned at the
presentation of the new web
site.
Roger Shrimpton, the executive
secretary of the SCN, noted that
this week's gathering in
Brasilia evaluated case studies,
with a view to finding a way to
meeting the targets set by the
MDGs.
The first of the eight MDGs,
which were adopted in September
2000 by the U.N. General
Assembly, is to eradicate
extreme poverty and hunger, with
the specific target of halving
the proportion of people in the
world suffering from hunger by
the year 2015.
According to the U.N. Food and
Agriculture Organisation (FAO),
nearly 900 million people
worldwide are currently living
in hunger.
The case studies show that words
like hunger, for example, can
cause confusion, said Shrimpton,
referring to the reports
presented by Angola, Bolivia,
Brazil and Mozambique at the
gathering in Brasilia, which
drew around 1,000
representatives of governments,
civil society and international
agencies.
The media, he noted, use the
world hunger as a tool to move
readers, although it is also
possible to understand the term
as malnutrition or the lack of
an adequate diet. ”It is
necessary to suggest concrete
terms for each specific
situation,” he recommended.
The creation of the web site is
”more than timely,” said Renato
Maluf, a member of the Brazilian
government's National Food
Security Council.
The search for food security
requires multisectorial action
and close coordination between
various government agencies,
civil society and the media, he
said.
”Our challenge is to make the
meaning of 'food security'
comprehensible, because neither
the public nor journalists
themselves have a sufficient
understanding of the concept
today,” said Maluf.
Representatives of civil society
underscored at this week's SCN
session that nutrition is
indispensable for the
development of children. Half of
the deaths among children under
five worldwide are the result of
malnutrition.
But the new web site, Acción 17,
is not limited to the question
of hunger. The idea is to
promote the well-being and
rights of children in general,
said Kastberg.
He pointed out, however, that
the first MDG, cutting in half
the number of hungry people in
the world, has a strong
influence on other targets
involving children, such as
mortality, health and education.
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