- From Congo to Chechnya and Somalia to Sudan, children are bearing the brunt of the world's worst "forgotten emergencies", their plight scarcely making a blip on the international news radar.
That's the implication of a Reuters AlertNet poll of humanitarian experts and journalists that highlights the planet's most dangerous places for children. AlertNet analysed global media coverage in English of the top 10 child hotspots chosen by respondents and found little correlation between the scale of suffering and relative column inches.
Instead, perceived geopolitical importance to Western powers seemed to drive media attention, with Iraq, Palestinian territories and Afghanistan hogging the lion's share of the limelight.
"I believe one of the key protection concerns for children at present are the protracted 'forgotten' emergencies which are resulting in generations of children knowing nothing but a country in upheaval," Amalia Fawcett, advocacy and policy analyst for relief group World Vision New Zealand, said in her response to the poll.
"These situations do not receive sufficient attention due to compassion fatigue, or more short term crises that hit the press but can be just as devastating for the children who lose parents, health and education infrastructure and grow up without a future stable enough to plan for and look forward to."
The experts ranked Iraq as the world's fourth most dangerous place for children yet the country attracted more general coverage in a year than eight of the other top hotspots combined.
Sudan, northern Uganda and Congo - voted the world's top three danger spots for children - together drummed up a mere eighth of the general attention given to Iraq.
POLL RESULTS: Most dangerous places for children MEDIA COVERAGE: General coverage of emergenciesThe research is based on analysis of stories in 110 English-language publications from around the world held in the database of Factiva, a Reuters and Dow Jones company, using techniques honed for competing multinational companies to analyse their success in attracting the media spotlight.
The analysis did not assess the level of coverage given to children's issues in particular but quantified coverage of general news related to the various emergencies.
A note on methodology: In addition to the countries shown above, poll respondents chose India as the world's sixth most dangerous place for children, citing child labour, general poverty, malnutrition and sexual abuse. AlertNet's analysis of media coverage was limited to stories filtered through AlertNet emergency sections. With no comparable section on the site for India, the country was excluded from the analysis.
Read more:- LEAD STORY: Sudan is most dangerous place for children - poll
- FACTFILE: The world's 10 most dangerous places for children
- Sex abuse, work and war deny childhood to tens of millions
- TIPSHEET: How to report on children in crises
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