Children living in dire circumstances. Get your tissues, you are sure to cry. From PBS News.
Worldwide, more than 340,000 children under age 5 died from diarrheal diseases in 2013 due to a lack
of safe water, sanitation and basic hygiene. That’s 1,000 deaths a day, according to the UN’s statistics.
What’s more, the No. 1 killer of children between the ages of one month to 5 years, pneumonia, can
also be spread through a lack of hygiene.
Although
much improvement has been made in the past decade to aid children
across the globe, there are still alarming numbers who do not have
access to clean water, proper sanitation or even just a way to clean
their hands — especially after coming in contact with waste and feces.
“A gram of feces can contain ten million viruses,” said Sanjay Wijesekera, Chief of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene, Programme Division at UNICEF. “Many diseases are transmitted by pathogens going from feces to food and fingers and so on, making children ill.”
One of the
most basic hygiene problems that haunt developing communities is lack of
adequate toilets. Around the world, about 2.5 billion people do not
have proper toilets. Among them, 1 billion people defecate in the open —
in fields, bushes and bodies of water — putting themselves and their
community in danger of fecal-oral diseases, like hepatitis, cholera and
dysentery.
Children are especially susceptible to these diseases when their home and “playgrounds” are overrun with rubbish and human waste. In countries throughout Asia, children can be seen swimming in polluted stagnant waters, digging through trash and playing amid toxic substances at landfills.
“When you have children running around barefeet, then coming in contact with excrete, it’s really easy to catch the worms and this of course impacts their development and growth,” said Dr. Aidan Cronin, Chief of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program at UNICEF Indonesia.
Reuters photographers have been capturing scenes like this for the past decade. But even some of the oldest photos in this series picture grisly scenes that, sadly, are still the reality in urban slums today.
Not only do these conditions promote the spread of deadly childhood diseases, another major health problem that affects children’s lives is stunting, often caused by malnutrition but also by intestinal worms and internal inflammation from fecal-oral contamination.
Stunting has become a huge obstacle for many children’s physical and cognitive growth, ultimately affecting their development and ability to learn. In Indonesia alone, nearly 9 million children suffer from stunting, said Cronin.
In Indonesia, UNICEF have recently launched a campaign called “Tinju Tinja,”
which means “punch the poo” in Indonesian, in support of the
Government’s five-year plan to have a completely open defecation-free
country. In an attempt to engage the urban youth, the campaign has one
of the local rock stars, Melanie Subono, literally fighting the “poo
monster” as the main image to spearhead the campaign.
“It all starts from acknowledging that [open defecation] is a serious problem,” Cronin said. “The more you engage with communities and work with them with their specific issues, the more sustainable sanitation is.”
One
way to help children is through education and schools, said Dr. Jody
Heymann, Dean of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and founding
director of the WORLD Policy Analysis Center. A lot of progress has been
made to make primary schools free and available for children around the
world. In Indonesia, UNICEF works through primary schools to teach kids
the importance of sanitation and hygiene by putting in clean toilets,
hand washing stations and soap so that the kids can form a habit of
cleaning.
“I think when we see [these] images, we should be asking not only ‘why isn’t there a playground? What’s leading them to the dump?’” said Heymann. “But the bigger question of what’s keeping them from being in school, gaining education that would give them lifelong opportunity.”
A
girl plays with her brother as they search for usable items at junkyard
near the Danyingone station
in the suburbs of Yangon, Myanmar, in 2012.
Photo by Damir Sagolj/ReutersWorldwide, more than 340,000 children under age 5 died from diarrheal diseases in 2013 due to a lack
of safe water, sanitation and basic hygiene. That’s 1,000 deaths a day, according to the UN’s statistics.
What’s more, the No. 1 killer of children between the ages of one month to 5 years, pneumonia, can
also be spread through a lack of hygiene.
“A gram of feces can contain ten million viruses,” said Sanjay Wijesekera, Chief of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene, Programme Division at UNICEF. “Many diseases are transmitted by pathogens going from feces to food and fingers and so on, making children ill.”
A
boy swims in the polluted waters of the Sabarmati River to dive for
offerings thrown in by
worshippers in the western Indian city of
Ahmedabad in 2010. Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters
Children are especially susceptible to these diseases when their home and “playgrounds” are overrun with rubbish and human waste. In countries throughout Asia, children can be seen swimming in polluted stagnant waters, digging through trash and playing amid toxic substances at landfills.
“When you have children running around barefeet, then coming in contact with excrete, it’s really easy to catch the worms and this of course impacts their development and growth,” said Dr. Aidan Cronin, Chief of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program at UNICEF Indonesia.
A
child jumps on the waste products that are used to make poultry feed as
she plays in a tannery at
Hazaribagh in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2012. Luxury leather goods sold across the world are produced
in this slum
area of Bangladesh’s capital where workers, including children, are
exposed to hazardous
chemicals and often injured in horrific accidents.
Photo by Andrew Biraj/Reuters
Reuters photographers have been capturing scenes like this for the past decade. But even some of the oldest photos in this series picture grisly scenes that, sadly, are still the reality in urban slums today.
Not only do these conditions promote the spread of deadly childhood diseases, another major health problem that affects children’s lives is stunting, often caused by malnutrition but also by intestinal worms and internal inflammation from fecal-oral contamination.
Stunting has become a huge obstacle for many children’s physical and cognitive growth, ultimately affecting their development and ability to learn. In Indonesia alone, nearly 9 million children suffer from stunting, said Cronin.
A
child eats breakfast in a garbage dump, where hundreds of people live
and make a living by recycling
waste and making charcoal, in the Tondo
section of Manila, Dec. 9, 2007.
Photo by Darren Whiteside/Reuters
“It all starts from acknowledging that [open defecation] is a serious problem,” Cronin said. “The more you engage with communities and work with them with their specific issues, the more sustainable sanitation is.”
Children
sitting on a makeshift raft play in a river full of rubbish in a slum
area of Jakarta, Indonesia,
in 2012. Photo by Enny Nuraheni/Reuters
“I think when we see [these] images, we should be asking not only ‘why isn’t there a playground? What’s leading them to the dump?’” said Heymann. “But the bigger question of what’s keeping them from being in school, gaining education that would give them lifelong opportunity.”
A boy looks on as he collects recyclable materials at a garbage dump in New Delhi in 2006.
Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters
A boy plays in a polluted river after school at Pluit dam in Jakarta, Indonesia, June 5, 2009.
Photo by Beawiharta/Reuters
Sana,
a 5-year-old girl, plays on a cloth sling hanging from a signalling
pole as smoke from a garbage dump rises
next to a railway track in
Mumbai, India, in 2012. Photo by Vivek Prakash/Reuters
A
child living in a slum plays on a swing under a bridge on the bank of
Bagmati River in Kathmandu,
Nepal, Oct. 17, 2011. Photo by Navesh
Chitrakar/Reuters
A
child swims in a polluted reservoir in Pingba, in southwest China’s
Guizhou province Sept. 2, 2006.
Photo by China Daily/Reuters
A
boy plays at a garbage dump where hundreds of people stay and make a
living out of recycling
waste and making charcoal in the Tondo section
of Manila, in 2007. Photo by Darren Whiteside/Reuters
Children
play in the fumes of a municipality fumigant sprayer in a slum area in
the northeastern Indian
city of Siliguri, Oct. 5, 2006. Photo by Rupak
De Chowdhuri/Reuters
Waste
collector Dinesh Mukherjee, 11, watches his friend jump over a puddle
of toxic liquid at the
Ghazipur landfill in New Delhi Nov. 10, 2011.
Photo by Parivartan Sharma/Reuters
A
boy swims in the polluted water of the Yamuna River to dive for
offerings thrown in by worshippers
amid a dust haze in New Delhi during
World Environment Day in 2010.
Photo by Reinhard Krause/Reuters
People
paddle in the waters of Manila Bay amid garbage in the Philippines’
capital city on Easter
Sunday, April 24, 2011. Photo by Cheryl
Ravelo/Reuters
Boys
collect coconuts thrown in as offerings by worshippers in the waters of
the Sabarmati River after
the immersion of idols of the Hindu elephant
god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, in the western Indian
city of
Ahmedabad in 2011. Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters
Children of rag-pickers stand amid a heap of garbage on the outskirts of New Delhi in 2006.
Photo by Kamal Kishore/Reuters
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