Above: children receiving health care in Haiti (UN Photo/Logan Abassi)
By the Caribbean Journal staff
Haiti’s children have seen significant progress in the areas of education, nutrition, health and sanitation since 2006, according to a United Nations survey.
The Haiti Demographic and Health Survey, which covered 13,350 households in Haiti, found that 77 percent of children aged 6 to 11 attended primary school in 2012, compared to just below 2005 to 2006.
Acute malnutrition among children in Haiti aged six months to 59 months has been cut by half from 10 percent to 10 percent in the same period, while chronic malnutrition among Haiti’s children has fallen frmo 29 percent to 22 percent from 2005-2006 to 2012.
“Results of the survey show that the efforts of partners in Haiti in these three years contributed to progress in many sectors and mitigated the impact on children of the 2010 earthquake, the outbreak of cholera and other disasters.” said Edouard Beigbeder, the representative of the UN Children’s Fund in Haiti. “These findings call for a continued commitment to support the country in sustaining this success while addressing existing challenges and where progress has lagged.”
The 2012 survey was conducted by the Institut Haitien de l’Enfance, under the direction of Haiti’s Ministry of Health and supported by UNICEF and the UN Population Fund.
The under-five mortality rate in Haiti, which stood at 88 deaths per 1,000 live births, has fallen from a rate of 96 from 1997 to 2001.