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Jamie Rubin:
And so that, in your view, makes it more likely these goals can be achieved?
Carol Bellamy:More likely, but there's no guarantee. You're not brought before a court, you're not penalized, you're not thrown into jail, and I don't think you should be. I'm not suggesting any of those things. It really is public pressure, but I think there's greater capacity in the world today to bring that public pressure.
Jamie Rubin:
You've played a prominent role in the most recent children's summit here in New York, and one of the issues I gather was the role of children in this process, the children as decision making participants. Tell us about how you see that evolving.
Carol Bellamy:
I'm saying what you would obviously expect me to say, but it was extraordinary. I think it even surpassed UNICEF's expectation. First of all, of the 181 countries I think, or 179 countries that were present, 132 of them had young people, under the age of 18, as actually official delegates. They were different, but it was really wonderful, it actually brought a breath of fresh air into some of these kind of stuffy UN discussions. Secondly, it was really interesting, we saw in the lead up to the special session, and we've also seen in the leaving of this meeting much more activity of young people in many of these countries. And then the young people themselves came out with a declaration, took them three days to come up with, it took the UN about a year to come up with theirs. T hey were very clear, they said things like, we are not expenditures, we're investments. They said politics and war are the games of adults, the children are the losers. I mean, quite clear in their views. I'm not saying every kid is right, I'm not saying everything they say is perfect, but I really think that the energy of young people back in their own countries is another factor that can add on to pushing these agendas forward.
Jamie Rubin:
One of the other issues you've advocated is the whole issue of guns and urban violence and child soldiers. We saw in the film examples of the security dilemmas for children in Brazil, and in Africa. What role do you really think UNICEF ought to play in this area?
Carol Bellamy:
First, I want people to think about war. When people think about war, I think they think about armies and troops and men in uniforms, maybe men and women now in uniforms, but that is not the face of war in the world today. The face of war in the world today is largely civilian, it's largely wars within a country, not necessarily between countries, there are just limited numbers where it's between countries. And, it's massive disruption of communities, people move from their homes, much more availability of small arms, lighter weapons. Modern technology allows you to use plastic and other things that are so light, they still kill, but they're light so kids can carry them. Very often, these kids are drugged, and so what you've seen around the world because of this increasing conflict in which there are no rules, is just this enormous proliferation of weapons, greater violence, greater instability, greater social unrest. We continue to call for - even if it is a war within a country - young people under the age of eighteen should not be called upon to fight, two much more restriction on the proliferation and distribution and sale of light weapons. It's just really gotten out of hand, and it's having enormous implications worldwide.
Jamie Rubin:
When you look out over the last ten years for the state of the world's children, how do you see developments?
Carol Bellamy:
Well, kids are clearly better off today than they were ten years ago. They are healthier, there are more kids in school, we're on the brink of eradicating polio. But if you go back ten years and you look at what the expectations were, they've fallen far short of what people thought would happen in this ten years. The fact is far less has happened than it should have.
Jamie Rubin:
And when you at UNICEF work on the HIV/AIDS, the health issues, what role does UNICEF play in trying to deal with it?
Carol Bellamy:
Well, I think it's important to understand, again if you go back to Rio in 1992, AIDS existed, but I don't think anybody understood how devastating the impact of HIV/AIDS would be. It's not only an illness that kills people, it basically eats apart at societies. So in countries, you're losing more teachers than you're able to train. You're losing health workers, you're losing government workers - so it influences everything that's going on. For UNICEF, our focus is largely on three areas: One, trying to prevent in the first place the transmission of AIDS from a mother who may be infected to the baby being born. Secondly, we focus-
Jamie Rubin:
Through medical services, or through what?
Carol Bellamy:
Well, through several things. One, through the mother understanding what her situation is and making choices about whether she will breast feed her child or how she will take care of her child. Or secondly, through- with the distribution of anti-retro virals, which can help reduce the transmission. So that's number one. But the mother has to know what her status is and in many societies, the systems aren't there to do that. Two orphans - there's already, it's estimated, while this is a global problem, the orphan problem is still largely an Africa problem. Estimated to be 13 million kids already orphaned - the loss of at least the mother if not both parents. They very often become outcasts in their own society. But you're going to create entire generations of people who will be just acting out all the time. So, to try and support them going to school, having some kind of extended family help.
And third, information and understanding by young people because half of all new cases are young people under the age of about 20, 21, 22. So if they can understand and change their behavior and young people, as compared with old folks like me, are willing generally to change behavior. So unless AIDS is taken on, and we're just part of a large army trying to take it on, then we're not going to see any improvements over the 21st century.
Jamie Rubin:
What about in education over the last ten years? Have you seen more or less progress than people might have hoped?
Carol Bellamy:
Well, it's interesting. There are more kids in school today than at any time before, but the population growth has kept up with education. One of the disappointing areas is the gender gap, which means that there are still more girls who aren't going to school than boys has only closed slightly. So, that of about the 120 million children of primary school age, 60% are girls. And we know what they're doing. I mean, those are the kids in child labor. Those are the kids who are being exploited. Those are the kids who are child soldiers. So many of the problems that the world has to confront, in some ways a more costly way of investing could at least, initially be better confronted if somehow we could assure that they were going to school.
Jamie Rubin:
Carol Bellamy, thank you for joining me.
Carol Bellamy:
Thank you.
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Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF
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