Jordan has lowered the mortality rate of children under five years old by one third, reduced child marriage, and is accomplishing literacy rates reaching over 90% of the population, and is blessed with a modern child rights law and other protective legislation
This was the good news delivered by Nadine Nimri, the Advocacy, Media and Communication senior manager at Save the Children Jordan. Speaking at the Amman Rotary Cosmopolitans club meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel, April 9th. 40% of persons living in Jordan are classified as children, among them 30% are non-Jordanian children
But despite these important milestones, children in Jordan face 20% of multidimensional poverty, which is reflected in continued child labor and children participating in money solicitation at traffic lights. Social habits are also a challenge, as 74% of parents still believe and practice corporal punishment, and child marriage is still above 10%. Nimri, who is active in the field of human rights, specifically the rights of the most vulnerable people, told Rotarians that in the Jordan Valley agricultural sector, there are continuous problems of physical and sexual abuse against children.
Save the Children Jordan, which led two campaigns against child labor and Child begging and has helped 150,000 children in Jordan annually, said that they lost some funding due to the cut in USAID to UN agencies supporting their work with children in Jordan.
Responding to a question, Nimri confirmed that smoking among teens is a major problem in Jordan and called for parents and community leaders to remember that they are role models to children and that they need to do more to break the cycle of tobacco addiction in Jordan which is among the highest in the world per capita.
Ghada Fanek, president of the Amman Cosmopolitans Rotary, said that the club distributed 93 food parcels during Ramadan, has contributed $6,000 towards Gaza children being treated at the Hussein Cancer center, and funded the Gola Gift of Life children's heart surgeries with $78,000 in grant support.
