Children

The monks contend that Sri Lanka’s existing penal code already contains sufficient safeguards to deal with abuse, and that new legislation is unnecessary and overly idealistic.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement this week that the continued exclusion of girls from classrooms was “a tragic violation of their fundamental rights.” She warned that the ban is denying an entire generation the opportunity to learn and jeopardizing Afghanistan’s future.

The launch, done together with the Ministry of Health and UNICEF in Bhutan,  coincides with UNICEF’s new global child nutrition report, which finds that overweight and obesity are rising fast among children, including in Bhutan.

With each mother who learns to cook a new, nutritious meal, and each spoonful of semolina porridge lovingly fed to a child, the cycle of poverty and poor health begins to break.

Using self-reported questionnaires, the survey assessed aspects such as alcohol and drug use, eating habits, physical activity levels, psychosocial wellbeing, injuries, exposure to violence and skipping meals due to food insufficiency.

Daniyal’s arrival is not a miracle story – it's a chilling symbol of the desperate circumstances confronting Afghan refugees in Pakistan today.

Combined, malaria and malnutrition constitute a “double health burden” that traps the most vulnerable – especially children under five years of age – in a deadly cycle.

In 2023 alone, roughly 260,000 women worldwide died during or shortly after childbirth, with 22 per cent (about 58,000 maternal deaths) occurring in the Asia-Pacific – many of which were preventable with timely midwife-led care.