Annual full-day meeting on the rights of the child “Towards better investment in the rights of the child”
28th session of the HRC (12 March 2015)
Annual full-day meeting on the rights of the child “Towards better investment in the rights of the child”
There is no doubt that, at this stage, investment in children is possible in all countries if certain measures are taken. But to increase such investment, economic growth and the proportion of children to the active and employed part of the population should be taken to the account. Focusing on concrete examples of strategies we would like to take your attention to the situation of Islamic Republic of Iran, where the fight against poverty remains incomplete and the number of children in labor and on the streets is on the rise. At the same time, the country has adopted a population growth policy and this leads to reduction of every child’s share in the total investment in society. The 2011 national census showed that there were more than 900,000 children between the ages of 6 and 14 out of school. According to the head of social pathologies’ office at the Ministry of Labor, 45 % of street children are between the ages of 10 to 14. While 34% of street children are in still in school, 40% of them have dropped out of school and 24% have never been to school. International solidarity should lead to countries with a higher proportion of active and employed citizens to children to help countries which have more children and less employed citizens such as least developed countries.
