The United Nations Children's Fund reported that over one billion children, or half the world's population of children suffer from HIV, one of the world's many wars or poverty. UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy said pointedly, 'When half the world's children are growing up hungry and unhealthy, when schools have become targets and whole villages are being emptied by AIDS, we've failed to deliver on the promise of childhood...Too many governments are making informed, deliberate choices that actually hurt childhood'

While not explicitly stated in the report, the many references to and criticisms of governments and certain nations in particular made it clear that the report was designed to put pressure on the least child-friendly states to clean up their acts, and to urge nonoffending states to offer money and manpower to help.

The report should make all of us examine ourselves and think about who we want to be as a species. Certainly, a species that is this hostile toward its most vulnerable, who also represent its future and progeny needs to make some fundamental changes to its behavior and culture.