' Waterborne diseases kill four children a minute, the U.N. children's agency said as activists urged the world to improve water safety for some 400 million children.
The call came from young campaigners meeting at the Children's World Water Forum (CWWF) in Mexico City.
UNICEF, which helped organise the conference, said children paid the highest price in a world where over 1 billion people do not have safe water and one in three lacks a basic toilet.
"Waterborne illness kills a child every 15 seconds and underlies much of the world's disease and malnutrition," UNICEF's executive director Ann Veneman said in a statement on the eve of World Water Day (March 22).
"Solutions to the world water crisis must ensure that children survive, thrive, learn and live in dignity."
Diarrhoea alone kills 4,500 children every day - the second highest single cause of childhood deaths. Waterborne diseases also mean many children are missing out on education which in turn reduces their chances of escaping poverty.
The CWWF, which is being held alongside the fourth World Water Forum, has brought together 100 children and teenagers from 30 countries.
"Where I live, many children are out of school because of diseases they catch from their drinking water or from their unwashed hands," said Dolly Akhter, 16, a hygiene educator from Bangladesh taking part in the conference.
"We are here to remind leaders that they must act to protect our health and education. It is our right and their responsibility."
World leaders have pledged to halve the proportion of people without safe water and basic sanitation by 2015 as one of the Millennium Development Goals.
UNICEF regional breakdown: Sub-Saharan AfricaDecades of conflict, poor land management and the current drought have left most children facing a desperate water shortage. Over 42 percent of the population have no access to safe water and only 36 percent have a toilet. This is the only region lagging on both its water and sanitation development goals.
South and East AsiaOver half of all people without toilets live in India and China ' 1.5 billion ' creating an environment polluted with human waste. Water quality is another growing threat to the region's children. Dangerous contaminants such as arsenic and fluoride put the health of 50 million people at serious risk.
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