DHAKA, Feb 12, 2020 (BSS) – Bangladesh’s Permanent Representative to the
United Nations and the President of the UNICEF’s Executive Board for 2020,
Ambassador Rabab Fatima early childhood development, empowerment and
education of girl child are among the priorities of UNICEF for the current
year.
She said this while presiding over the first regular session of the UNICEF
executive board on Tuesday.
In her statement, Fatima mentioned that apart from protecting the rights of
children, UNICEF needs to take upon the responsibility to prepare our
children to become better human beings-imbued with the values of a culture of
peace, non-violence and empathy to others.
Referring to two important milestones of multilateralism, the 75th
anniversary of UN’s founding and the 25th anniversary of the Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action towards equality for women and girls, she
said, “We were yet to free our girls from being discriminated and left
behind.”
“We made a promise to the girl child to empower her and we must keep that,”
she added.
Fatima mentioned about the significant progress in the situation of
children globally and also cautioned that over 660 million children are yet
to be lift out of poverty and 60 million school going children remains out of
school.
The UNICEF Executive Board President also spoke about new and emerging
frontiers of vulnerabilities for children, namely, cybercrime, protracted
humanitarian crisis, climate change effects, mental health issues which may
disproportionately affect the children.
UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore also spoke in the session.
She highly praised Bangladesh and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for children
friendly policies including skills development initiatives for country’s
youth population and continued support to the Rohingya children’s cause.