President of Mauritius island calls for world mobilization against AIDS
Regional, Health, 5/22/2001

President of Mauritius Island, Cassam Uteem, on Monday called on UN member states to fight aids in Africa and to set up an anti-aids fund.

The call was launched by President Uteem Monday during the opening session of the conference of Arab and African finance ministers, held in Marrakesh May 21-23, to prepare for the World Child Summit, due next September 19-21 at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

He recalled that 13 million children below 15 are orphans because of the aids pandemic and that 10 million of these children are African.

Setting up a fund of struggle against aids is an urgent necessity, otherwise Africa will live through a catastrophe, president Uteem warned.

He also spoke of the children affected by ethnic or religious conflicts, saying that 6 million children had been injured or crippled in these conflicts and that hundreds of thousands of children were enrolled as soldiers, used as drugs conveyors or exploited sexually. Every year, 8,000 to 10,000 children are killed by land mines throughout the world, he deplored.

During the conference opening session that was chaired by King Mohammed VI, Princess Lalla Meryem, chairwoman of the National Observatory for Children's Rights, delivered an address, wherein she expressed hope that this conference will mark a turning point in dealing with the challenges facing childhood at the start of the third millennium.

She called for the mobilization of additional financial resources to fulfill the pressing needs of children and improve their status in Arab and African countries. These financial resources are so necessary, she said, to protect children from the ills of illiteracy, ignorance, violence, exclusion, neglect, deviation and all forms of discrimination and exploitation.

Previous Stories:
  Tobacco, a major obstacle to children's rights   (5/5/2001)
  South Africa, India sign cheap drugs deal   (5/5/2001)
  Anti-AIDS summit concludes with call to fight epidemic   (4/28/2001)

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