Vietnam Makes Efforts in Lowering Maternal, Child Mortality: UNICEF

Vietnam has made strides in poverty reduction, illiteracy eradication and especially maternal and child mortality, according to Youssouf Abdel-Jelil, country director at the United Nations Children’s Funds (UNICEF). Children have grown up healthy thanks to national target programs that focus on people-centered development with no child left behind, the expert said at a conference in Hanoi on Dec 20 to celebrate 25 years Vietnam ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Attending the event included Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam who said that Vietnam was the first in Asia and second in the world approving the convention. Accordingly, Vietnam’s National Assembly approved Law on Child Protection, Care and Education in 1991 and amended in 2004 and 2015 in the spirit of the UNCRC, the deputy PM said. Child abuse, however, remains a thorny issue in Vietnam. The country has nearly 1.75 million child laborers. (Vietnamplus.vn Dec 21)