HARARE Zimbabwe has experienced a sharp decline in child welfare indicators over the past 20 years, according to a report on the State of the Worlds Children released last week by the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF). The report, which coincided with Fridays commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the UNs Convention on the Rights of the Child, observed that Zimbabwe was now ranked the 38th country with the highest number of under-fives deaths in the world. It showed that infant mortality among the under-fives had risen from 76 per 10 000 births in 1990 to 96 per 10 000 births in 2008.
Average life expectancy at birth for boys and girls was estimated at 44 years in 2008 while attendance in school was also down. The declining social indicators are reflective of the worsening socio-economic climate in the country since the 1990s when the country started experiencing economic and political turbulence. Collapsed social services over the past decade have worsened the plight of Zimbabwes children, with the education and health sector becoming pale shadows of their former selves due to perennial underfunding.
Another UNICEF report two weeks ago also highlighted an increasing number of Zimbabwean children suffering from stunted growth and weight