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Housing and Children: A Primer
What needs to be done to improve housing conditions for children? According to Theresa Kilbane of UNICEF, it takes the following:
- Security of tenure: Many children and their families live under the threat of eviction or fear forced removals because title to land they live on is not legal. This insecurity also inhibits improvements in the household and neighborhood, and harms the development of a cohesive community.
- Safe location: Children should live away from open sewers, mudslides and other dangerous environmental hazards, but have access to basic services such as health centers and schools, and live near recreational areas and spaces for safe play.
- Easy availability of safe and sufficient water, and a sanitary means of waste removal.
- Food storage facilities that prevent spoilage and infestation of food by animals/insects; and cooking facilities that are affordable and properly ventilated to avoid respiratory ailments.
- Secure housing that uses construction materials that will not harbor rodents and insects, and that includes moisture-proof, well-ventilated floor areas that can be cleaned easily to prevent exposure of small children to infections and diseases.
- Creating housing design that takes the needs of women, children and youth into account (privacy, toilet seats that are reachable to children, windows that look out onto common courtyard spaces so that children at play can be observed easily by their caretakers, etc.).
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