Child poverty in the United States falls to record low
The child poverty rate in the United States has fallen to a record low of 16% in 2016. In 1967, it was 28%.
Child well-being
Child and teen deaths worldwide fall by 50% from 1990 to 2017
New research in the journal JAMA Pediatrics found that deaths among children and adolescents fell from 13.77 million in 1990 to 6.64 million in 2017.
Japanese city of Otsu is using AI to prevent youth suicides
The hope is that the AI will allow school officials to identify the bullying cases that are likely to escalate in seriousness so that they can intervene and diffuse the situation before it’s too late.
New therapy bot helps children with autism perfect their social skills
Robotics startup LuxAI has created QTrobot, a bot designed to help children with autism learn valuable social skills.
India aims to criminalize witch doctor practice of branding sick children with hot irons
When a traditional healer burned hot clay into the chest of two-year-old Kushbu Lal, she died. Now moves are afoot to criminalize a practice that continues to cost lives.
U.N. brokers deal to end use of children in Nigeria’s battle with Boko Haram
Officials hail landmark for child protection as youth vigilante group known as Civilian Joint Task Force pledges to draw a line under recruitment of minors
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child formally comes into effect
The UNCRC is a groundbreaking international human rights treaty ratified by 196 countries (as of 2023) which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health, and cultural rights of children.
Global child mortality rate plummets from a historical average of 48% to 27% in 1950
As recently as two centuries ago, around 1 in 2 children died before reaching the end of puberty. Our ancestors were often largely powerless against poverty, famine, and disease, and these calamities were especially devastating for children. Since then, child mortality has plummeted across the world. This dramatic decline has resulted from better nutrition, clean water, sanitation, neonatal healthcare, vaccinations, medicines, and reductions in poverty, conflicts, and famine.
The Soviet Union becomes the first modern state in the world to formally legalize abortion
In October 1920, the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin made abortion legal within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic with their “Decree on Women’s Healthcare”. After the RSFSR, the law was introduced in Ukraine in July 1921 and then the remainder of the Soviet Union. The government saw legalization as a temporary necessity, as after the economic crisis and nearly a decade of unrest, war, revolution, and civil war, many women would be seeking abortions due to not being able to take care of their child.
The school lunch movement begins in Europe
The first school lunches were thought to be served in 1790 in Munich, Germany, by an American-born physicist, Benjamin Thompson, also known as Count Rumford. In Munich, Thompson founded the Poor People’s Institute, which employed both adults and children to make uniforms for the German Army. They were fed and clothed for their work, and the children were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. Years later, Thompson would feed 60,000 people a day from his soup kitchen in London.