Miami Herald - December 21, 2005
Marifeli Perez-Stable, marifeli@starpower.net

These boys and girls are born to exclusion -- often literally, as up to 20 percent are never officially registered -- and are virtually destined for a life of abuse, forced labor, prostitution, crime or disease. School, vacations, birthday parties, Nochebuena or Three-Kings' Day don't even enter their dreams.

In The State of the World's Children 2006, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) draws a stark profile of childhood around the world. One in two children lives in poverty. While progress has been made -- for example, infant and under-5 mortality rates have fallen, immunizations have increased, school enrollments are up, gender differences in school attendance are declining -- the glass is more than half-empty.

UNICEF emphasizes four causes of children's exclusion: poverty and inequality; armed conflicts and weak states; HIV/AIDS; and discrimination. And so it is in Latin America.

Economic growth is the best antidote for poverty, which Chile has amply demonstrated by cutting its rate in half. Inequality is another matter, for Chile also has one of the most pronounced. Region-wide, the richest 10 percent take in more than 50 percent of all income but pay less than 10 percent of it in taxes. That means governments don't have enough resources to provide public goods such as healthcare and education.

Pressing boys and girls into combat has certainly been commonplace in Colombia's civil war. Central American maras (youth gangs) regularly turn adolescent boys into killers, just as the paramilitaries and the guerrillas did in the 1980s. Narcotraffickers everywhere use children as mulas to ferry their cargo. In these underworlds, girls are frequently entrapped by sexual slavery.

Haiti's failed state blights the children most with the lowest rates of vaccination, school attendance and nutrition in the Western Hemisphere. Forty-eight thousand children in Latin America are HIV positive or have AIDS. Nearly 800,000 are orphaned by AIDS; most of them end up living on the streets. Afro-descendant and indigenous children -- particularly in rural areas -- are the most excluded and exploited.

UNICEF underscores that children's well-being requires concerted and sustained actions by families, governments, the private sector, civil society, communities and the media. Ecuador and Mexico have created national commissions to protect children that are succeeding thanks to the multilateral cooperation that UNICEF recommends. Still, Latin America must do better, much better, by its children.

A just-issued report by the Partnership for Educational Revitalization in the Americas (PREAL) presents a sobering report card. Since PREAL's first report in 2001, most Latin American governments have taken steps to increase investment, establish national testing systems, develop standards and delegate responsibility to local authorities.

Yet, quality, equity and efficiency remain low. Levels of learning are well under par for all students; Latin American children perform poorly in international tests. Performance-based schools are practically nonexistent. Parents and communities have few levers to hold schools accountable. The teaching profession is in crisis, largely due to lack of training but change-averse unions also play a part.

Inequality lies at the heart of the educational quagmire. Unsurprisingly, the richest 20 percent receive a higher share of educational spending than the poorest 20 percent. Nicaragua spends a glaring one-third of its education budget on the rich. Commendably, Colombia and Costa Rica invest more than 20 percent of their education funds on the neediest.

The spending ratio of higher-to-primary education is equally telling of entrenched inequities. Mexico and Cuba expend two pesos on universities for every peso on primary schools. Nicaragua and Brazil are the worst at seven and five, respectively.

Caring for the least fortunate in any society is a moral imperative. Yet morality need not enter the equation. Children do suffer terribly when we adults shirk our responsibilities. But Latin America's shortfall -- and ours here in the United States with our own children -- compromises a future in common. That so many Latin American children fall through the cracks is another symptom of a region that is failing to keep up in the world.

Latin America can surely do better, much better, as can we all in the spirit of the season.

Marifeli Perez-Stable is vice president for democratic governance at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C.

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