Child Victims of the Tsunami

TERENCE SMITH:

Of the thousands of heartrending images to come from the tsunami-devastated areas this week, perhaps the most affecting are those of the smallest victims, those who died and those left behind, injured, orphaned, lost. United Nations officials gave a crushing estimate of the numbers of children affected.

JAN EGELAND:

We see one-third of the victims being children. And this is going through the dead, the wounded, and also those affected. Actually, it would be more than a third of those who are affected in general. But of the casualties, it's around one-third.

TERENCE SMITH:

Why so many? Birth rates in the affected countries– all considered underdeveloped– are among the highest in the world. 35 percent of Indonesia's population is under the age of 18. The figure is 39 percent in India, 35 percent in Sri Lanka. Another factor in the giant toll: Their very size made many children easy prey to the rushing, rising waters of the tsunami; they lacked the strength to hold on.

As aid agencies and governments now try to prevent the onset of disease, particular attention must be paid to children who, along with the elderly, are the most vulnerable to illness and have their own nutrition needs. The key component of that drive will be the provision of safe food and potable water, especially for children unaccustomed to fending for themselves. Another huge job: Reuniting families that have been broken up and finding at least temporary shelter and care for the thousands of children whose parents are dead or missing.

TERENCE SMITH:

For more, we turn to Carol Bellamy, executive director of UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, and Christine Knudsen, a child protection specialist for Save the Children, a humanitarian relief organization. Welcome to you both. Carol Bellamy, when you are confronted with a disaster of this magnitude, what are your priorities? What are the most urgent things you ear trying to get done first?

CAROL BELLAMY:

Well, I'm not sure we've been confronted with a catastrophe as great as this but clearly trying to keep the children who are alive, alive, as was just reported, access to clean water, making sure they've been immunized against diseases that could kill or cripple, making sure that if there are family members who could take care of them, even if they are not their parents, they are reunited with the family members; dealing with the problem of what I call still water, which may be as bad as the rushing water. That's the water that is contaminated, that could bring malaria, diarrhea. With diarrhea could come dehydration and death. So water, family, medicine.

TERENCE SMITH:

So Christine Knudsen, keeping them alive?

CHRISTINE KNUDSEN:

Yes.

TERENCE SMITH:

Really as basic as that?

CHRISTINE KNUDSEN:

In many case what is we're trying to do at this point is ensure there's not further loss of life. Many of these children, especially the youngest ones, are really vulnerable, as carol was mentioning, to water-borne diseases, to diarrhea, to respiratory infections and we need to make sure they have the food, the shelter, and the clean water that they need to survive as well as the caregivers who can provide that for them.

TERENCE SMITH:

Carol Bellamy, what are the obstacles you're encountering at this early stage in this whole process? Is it getting supplies and people there? Is it getting it out into the provinces? What are… what are the problems?

CAROL BELLAMY:

Well, I think many of us, UNICEF included, have stocks on hand to do the immediate response. But certainly the scale of this is so large that we're going to confront whether there are available stocks from water purification to blankets to other needs.

Second — and this is very important — we've, as other humanitarian agencies, we've been able to bring materials in. UNICEF has programs in all of these countries, so we had materials in. But getting them to the people, the roads are out, the infrastructure is down, the ability to just find out where people are is a very difficult issue. And it's even more difficult when you're dealing with children. So lodge incompetents and getting honestly from the capitals to the people is going to be the biggest problem. What isn't the problem… sorry.

TERENCE SMITH:

Go ahead. No, please.

CAROL BELLAMY:

I was going to say, having the resources is always a problem but I wanted to say that the world community has been enormously generous. They need to continue to be, but I want to thank the world community for the generosity so far.

TERENCE SMITH:

Christine Knudsen, when you have a problem of getting to the… where things are most needed, what do you do? Do you turn to the local government? Are they any n any position to help you? Do you expect outsiders to come in and get you there? How do you do it?

CHRISTINE KNUDSEN:

Well, the way we're going about it right now in Indonesia, for instance, is that we are working with our partners. Save the Children has been in Bandar Aceh since the late '70s.

TERENCE SMITH:

And you've been there yourself.

CHRISTINE KNUDSEN:

I was there a few years ago and I'm sure I'm going to be heading back again in the next few days. But we know the communities there and we're able to work with communities to mobilize what we have on stock, to get materials in as quickly as we can. I think our first stocks were arriving just this evening.

But we did have a few things in reserve. In Sri Lanka, we had luckily some high-protein biscuits we've been able to distribute for the smallest children. And that's going to help them get through until we can get just the supplies that we need.

TERENCE SMITH:

Carol Bellamy, we talked about keeping these children alive. Do they have special needs either in terms of diet or nutrition to sustain themselves through what is obviously an incredibly difficult period?

CAROL BELLAMY:

Well, they do have some special needs. She just mentioned the need for high-protein biscuits. That's something that both Save and UNICEF — and we work together, we're very good partners — provide something like that. Water is key, again because the lack of clean water can lead to diarrhea and die hydration, which can hit children, it hits adults as well but hits children, much greater degree.

Partly having a caregiver, I mean, we're talking about special needs, one of the needs is having the caregiver, whether it's an extended family member which is, again, a reason why we're going to as quickly as possible try and connect the children back into some family member because that's the best way to take care of them.

TERENCE SMITH:

Well, how do you do that, Christine Knudsen? Do you… how do you reunify families that have been scattered under this situation, particularly if they're not intact?

CHRISTINE KNUDSEN:

Well, one of the things about responding in a natural disaster like this is that communities largely are not too far dislocated. So you'll have villagers who might recognize children on their own and care for them until we're able to find parents for them.

That's another thing that we're doing very strongly at this point in partnership with the local government, with other agencies, with UNICEF and many, many other actors, making sure we have a place where people can bring children to say "these children are looking for their parents;" to have parents who can come and say ""we're looking for our children" and to bring those two together.

But at this first initial phase we depend on communities to be the chain of information. They're the ones who recognize the children; they know where they come from. They know where they need to be; where their families might be. They might have news. They might know where an aunt or uncle is and we rely on that through the communities we work with.

TERENCE SMITH:

Carol Bellamy, there were some reports of families who lost their children offering to either adopt or care for other children who may themselves be orphaned. I wonder, (a), if you have heard of that and, (b), if it causes any concern.

CAROL BELLAMY:

Well, I know there's a desire to help as much as possible. You know, these countries are countries where there's a pretty big extended family tradition. And we all believe, I think, that the best place for a child in the first place is with a family member, so clearly some children ultimately will be adopted in their countries or even perhaps outside of their countries. But an enormous effort has to first be put in place to find extended family members. This is really the best for the children.

TERENCE SMITH:

And the children themselves, Christine Knudsen, do they have… they must have emotional needs at this point. I would assume they would have been terrified by what happened and perhaps still be terrified.

CHRISTINE KNUDSEN:

Some of the stories we saw, the adults were very, very traumatized by the events that have happened to them. For children it can be just so much worse. Everything familiar to them has been turned upside down literally in the last few days. One of my colleagues told me a story about a little girl who was afraid to walk across a puddle. She didn't know what was going to happen because of the water.

TERENCE SMITH:

Because the water had been so violent.

CHRISTINE KNUDSEN:

The water had been so violent and she was used to water being a place of recreation and fun and relaxation and now it's turned and really attacked her whole way of life. What we need to do is establish some predictability, some familiarity, some activities that children can look forward to and know that they're going to be the same everyday, bring back a sense of normalcy and routine to their lives.

TERENCE SMITH:

How do you do that sort of thing, Carol Bellamy? I mean, do you… you know, can you reopen schools in I can't imagine you can.

CAROL BELLAMY:

But you may not reopen the building of the school, but actually, one of the best things you can do as quickly as possible is to get children back into some, as Christine said, normalcy. And so, for example, we have a program and, again, we work with many partners, called school in a box.

It isn't the physical school but it's the materials and if you identify community members or teachers and the children have something to go to where they can play, perhaps they can draw pictures, they can feel that there is something that they remember, that makes a big difference in reducing… it won't make it all go away, but reducing some of this trauma.

TERENCE SMITH:

I wonder, Christine Knudsen, what effect it has on a society. You referred to a community but even larger, a society, to lose so many of its children in an incident like this.

CHRISTINE KNUDSEN:

I think it's too early to say exactly what that effect is going to be. But we know it's going to be long term. We know it's going to be a lasting effect. Parents who have lost their children, children who have lost their parents, all of these young people who have also lost what their future was going to be or what they thought it was going to be.

It's too early to know what's going to happen. But the critical thing here is that we are getting children into activities that are going to help them to build their futures again, hopefully in a very positive way. But it's a long haul investment, and it's a long haul development that we need to be looking at here.

I think, you know, so much is looking at what happens in the next few hours and days to prevent further loss of life. But we also need to look at what happens next year and the year down the road when schools are back, when parents and families have been reunited and are trying to build their lives again. How can we continue to support that?

TERENCE SMITH:

What are your thoughts on that, Carol Bellamy, the longer lasting impact? I mean, this, in effect, has punch add hole in some of these societies and there are people of certain ages simply missing.

CAROL BELLAMY:

It has punched a hole, but I couldn't agree more with Christine that this… all of just to approach this not only in the immediacy but look to the future. These communities will have a future. They've got to be rebuilt. The best place to start, actually, is with the young people and with the children.

If they are given an opportunity… this disaster will never leave their minds but there really is an opportunity in the future and so, again, for this investment that the world community is making, they've got to be prepared to invest in the long run.

TERENCE SMITH:

Carol Bellamy, Christine Knudsen, thank you both very much.

CAROL BELLAMY:

Thank you.