BEIJING, Nov. 12. (Xinhua) Parents in seven countries were satisfied with the health care and medical treatment for children but worried about crime, according to a report on children's welfare released here Thursday, ahead of the Universal Children's Day on Nov. 20.
The report, jointly issued by Xinhua News Agency and leading market researcher, The Nielsen Company, presented the living conditions and development of children, as well as the protection of their rights. It was based on a survey of more than 2,000 Internet users in the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Poland, South Africa, Nigeria and India.
Respondents to the survey were parents of children between three to 14 years old and specialists in child-related research sectors, including pediatricians, psychologists, sociologists, editors of children magazines and social workers. Interviews on the parents were carried out online in the six countries except Nigeria, in which face-to-face interviews were applied. The sample size was 300 parents per country, half men and half women.
The sample size of specialists was 10 per country, covering different professions. The interviews were done via telephone.According to the survey, the protection of children's rights to survival and development in the seven countries were merely considered acceptable, Disease prevention and health care and medical treatments for the children ranked the most satisfactory in the category of children's survival rights protection, according to the survey.
They were followed by the establishment of public activity space, supervision of food safety, environmental renovation, and medical insurance. Psychological counseling and treatment, and crackdown on violent crime ranked the least satisfactory. In the meantime, capital input into education and production and transmission of children's cultural products were considered satisfactory in the category of protecting children's development.The quality of the education system and the cultivation of children's interests, however, were considered comparatively less satisfactory.The report was released amid media coverage on the upcoming Nov. 20, which marks the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) by the United Nations in 1989.
Xinhua and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have launched a global media campaign for children's rights in the run-up to Nov. 20 and a 24-hour global live multimedia coverage on the day, dubbed the "Global News Day for Children". It will be the first time that global media report at the same time on the same topic. More than 600 media organizations worldwide have participated in the joint campaign, a move to expand on the impact generated by the World Media Summit held in Beijing early October, which concluded that care for the mankind should first go to children.The CRC is the first legally binding international agreement on the protection of children's rights, which requires abidance from the legal systems of all countries that have ratified the document, including China.