GENEVA, Dec 31 (AFP) - The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Wednesday said AIDS, war, child abuse, life expectancy and a lack of investment in education will be the key concerns for child welfare in 2004.
"Each of these issues alone poses heartbreaking challenges for hundreds of millions of children," said UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy.
"Together, they represent a global imperative to do more for children in 2004," she said in a statement.
People under the age of 25 account for more than half of all new cases of HIV/AIDS and 14 million children have already been orphaned by the disease -- a figure that is destined to rise, according to the agency.
As for war, more than two million children have died as a direct result of armed conflict in the past decade and three times that number have been permanently disabled or seriously injured, UNICEF said.
The exploitation and abuse of children was also a serious challenge, warned the organisation, noting that an estimated 246 million youngsters are forced to work, 171 million of whom do so in hazardous conditions.
"At any given time, over 300,000 child soldiers, some as young as eight, are exploited in armed conflicts in over 30 countries around the world," UNICEF said in the statement.
In addition, nearly 11 million children die annually before their fifth birthday and many more are left with physical or mental problems because their families do not have the means to fight killer bugs such as measles, malaria and diarrhoea, the agency observed.
Finally, UNICEF warned that governments in both the developed and developing world have failed to recognise the importance of investing in children, largely through better education.
"If we continue to invest in children and insist that they be a central focus of any discussion about development, we may indeed make the world a better and safer place," said Bellamy.
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