UNICEF says more children in school, fewer dying, but a billion struggle

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. is celebrating the success of its treaty guaranteeing children's rights, while focusing on more than a billion youngsters that need more help.

It was 20 years ago tomorrow that the U.N. adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The head of the U.N. children's agency says it has transformed the way young people are "viewed and treated throughout the world."

In a special report today, UNICEF says fewer children around the world are dying and more are going to school. But it also says 1 billion are still deprived of food, shelter, education or clean water and nearly 200 million are chronically malnourished. More than 90 percent of those children live in Africa or Asia.

The convention has the widest support of any human rights treaty, with Somalia and the U.S. the only two countries not to have ratified it. While the Clinton administration signed the convention, it was never submitted to the Senate, because a number of groups argued it infringed on the rights of parents and was inconsistent with state and local laws.

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: In this photo taken Sunday, Aug. 16, 2009, Marina, 3, center-left, plays with other children in the back of a garbage collection truck, in the Zabbaleen area of Muqattam Hills, where many garbage collectors live and work, on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. Twenty years after the U.N. adopted a treaty guaranteeing children's rights, fewer youngsters are dying and more are going to school, but an estimated 1 billion children still lack services essential to their survival and development, UNICEF said Thursday.

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: In this photo taken on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009, children rummage for scrap metal, following a fire which gutted 400 houses in Mandaluyong city, east of Manila, Philippines. The Philippine Labor Department estimates that there are 2.1 million Filipino child workers, mostly in the agriculture sector. Twenty years after the U.N. adopted a treaty guaranteeing children's rights, fewer youngsters are dying and more are going to school, but an estimated 1 billion children still lack services essential to their survival and development, UNICEF said Thursday.

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: This Nov. 16, 2009 photo shows Palestinian teacher Gada Aby Ward teaching in the Omar Ben al-Khattab School. Twenty years after the U.N. adopted a treaty guaranteeing children's rights, fewer youngsters are dying and more are going to school, but an estimated 1 billion children still lack services essential to their survival and development, UNICEF said Thursday.

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: This Nov. 17, 2009 photo shows a boy eating his lunch during recess at a school for children of migrant workers in a Beijing suburb, China. Twenty years after the U.N. adopted a treaty guaranteeing children's rights, fewer youngsters are dying and more are going to school, but an estimated 1 billion children still lack services essential to their survival and development, UNICEF said Thursday.