A Global Concern: The Plight of the Young
By Milana McLead

A still, small voice issues a plea across an invisible web that links the world via computer: "My friends and I think it's better to live in peace and be free," writes 16-year-old Shushanik of Armenia to UNICEF's "Voices of Youth" Web site. "Nowadays many children haven't a shelter. It is terrible. I want all children to live in their own house without any problems. I hope that my desire doesn't seem to be impossible."

With one in four children living in poverty in the world today, it may seem just that—impossible.

For these vulnerable victims, poverty can often block access to basic necessities such as housing, food and safe water; it can deprive them of access to education, employment and basic skills; and it can lead to poor health, illiteracy, alienation, drug abuse, drug trafficking and crime.

Selman Erguden, acting coordinator of the shelter and construction section of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, explains the psychological impact: "Many psychosocial problems, such as depression, drug and alcohol abuse, violence and child abuse, delinquency, and rape and assault, are associated with unsatisfactory housing conditions, especially overcrowding and noise."


It is children who suffer the plight of poverty to its fullest—it prevents millions of them from growing up healthy, safe and educated. For some 18 million children a year, it prevents them from growing up at all.

Even so, young people are a vital force, with 15- to 24-year-olds comprising 18 percent of the world's population—the majority of whom live in developing countries. Predictions are that their numbers will continue to increase well into the next century. Youth issues, then, are increasingly at the top of most human development agendas, for one fundamental reason: "children" (ages 14 and under), and "youth" (ages 15-24) are not only the future, they are also the present.

In its strategy for youth—the "World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and Beyond"—the United Nations identified 10 priority areas for action aimed at improving the well-being of youth: education, employment, hunger and poverty, health, environment, drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, leisure-time activities, girls and young women, and youth participation.

A great many international agencies with varying focuses have youth-related policies, programs and projects. Still, by most accounts, the highest global priority for today's youth is education.

In fact, UNICEF's 1999 "State of the World's Children" report calls for "Education for All," and notes that: "Nearly a billion people, two-thirds of which are women, will enter the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names—much less operate a computer or understand a simple application form. And they will live, as now, in more desperate poverty and in poorer health than those who can read."

Even if children of developing nations have access to education, the poverty they live in still conspires against them.

"Children living in low-income settlements or on the streets are disadvantaged [to begin with] in gaining access to education," says United Nations Centre for Human Settlements' Andre Dzikus, who is its human settlements officer for child-centered issues. "But even if they do [gain access], they are disadvantaged again by increased ill-health and higher rates of psychosocial disorders." This, combined with low education levels, in all likelihood will negatively impact such children—possibly for life—as their future economic opportunities and their ability to contribute to society are greatly limited.

In hopeful recognition of the need for education, the UNICEF report calls for access to high-quality learning and a child rights approach—a right-to-education directive that stems from the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child—the world's most universally embraced human rights instrument.

"A century that began with children having virtually no rights," says UNICEF's executive director Carol Bellamy, "is ending with children having the most powerful legal instrument that not only recognizes but protects their human rights."

So, to Armenia's young Internet writer, Shushanik, perhaps today's world leaders can promise hope for tomorrow. And with that hope, perhaps decent shelter can come along, too.

To that end, in 1996, world leaders from some 180 countries convened in Istanbul, Turkey, in a world summit dubbed Habitat II (United Nations Conference on Human Settlements). In general, it was agreed that the world needs adequate shelter for all and sustainable human settlements.

Out of that conference was born this definition of a decent home for children: It will include a safe water supply, sanitary ways to dispose of human and household waste, protection from traffic and other dangers, protection from pollution and disease, freedom from too much noise and overcrowding, adults who care for children and special care for disabled children.

Can improved shelter make a difference in a child's life?

"Child health and well-being can be directly linked to the home environment where children spend a significant amount of time," says Theresa Kilbane, program officer in the gender, partnerships and participation section of UNICEF. "Housing that is overcrowded, insecure, poorly ventilated or lacking vital services such as water and sanitation, creates a harmful home environment. Children need an environment that is safe, secure and nurturing."

"I think I'm very rich now because we were so poor. Now we're very rich. This house is so good and has a lot of things that have changed our lives. We were always sick in the other house - it was a mud house, it was always raining and getting us wet. This is a good life here in this house. When we moved into this house we lived in peace. Before, we were always fighting in the old house."

—Son of Habitat homeowner
Pedro Henao,
Quimbaya, Colombia

Milana McLead is editor of Habitat World.


Reprinted from Habitat World Magazine, October/November 1999.
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©1999 Habitat for Humanity International