The climate crisis, environmental degradation and the pollution of air, soils and water are a global threat. Children who are thus installed are particularly affected. The United Nations made it clear in 2023: every child has the right to a healthy environment. We are committed to realizing this right worldwide. Together we can protect the health and natural livelihoods of all children. Support us!
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Healthy environment for children - data and facts
Child right to a healthy environment
Floods that destroy houses and schools; the deforestation of forests and other ecosystems that serve indigenous groups as habitats; Cities in which children breathe in contaminated air: the environmental and climate crisis has long been a crisis in children's rights.
Against this background, the United Nations Children's Rights Committee came to the conclusion in September 2023: The right to grow up and live in a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a right of child. The basis is the UN Convention on the Rights of Children. 196 states have ratified, transferred to national law and thus known for fundamental rights of every child - for example, the right to health; to an appropriate standard of living; And on life, survival and development. Now it is official: climate and environmental damage can no longer be ignored. The international community is obliged to issue national laws to protect the environment and health. And it must ensure that these laws are also observed.
More about General Comment No. 26
Environmental pollution: fatal consequences for children
Bad air, dirty water or contaminated soils can have dangerous and even fatal consequences. This applies especially to children: your immune system is not yet mature, they are more susceptible to respiratory, skin and intestinal diseases. Every third child is poisoned with lead, which is absorbed through the environment. Air pollution is the second most common cause of death in children under the age of five after malnutrition. In many countries around the world, newborns are already born with several toxins in the body. The negative effects burden children for a lifetime.
Climate change: imbalance at the expense of coming generations
While years of droughts transform fertile land into deserts, floods are devastated elsewhere and storms. Children in poorer regions of the global south are particularly affected, which themselves hardly contribute to the causes and have little to counter:
Climate change also stands for blatant injustice between the generations: A child who is born today must live with a greater risk of being exposed to climate change consequences than the generations that are responsible for him.
What does Terre des Hommes do?
- We are committed to ensuring that all children and adolescents can grow up in a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
- We enable children and adolescents to access information and knowledge of environmental and climate atmosphere.
- We support and protect children and adolescents who are committed to climate and environmental protection.
- We are committed to the realization of child law on a healthy environment. We help children and families who suffer from the consequences of climate change.
In Terre of the Hommes project, children get to know nature and actively get involved: They learn which environmental rights they can demand, get to know sustainable economic and growing methods and motivate their families and neighborhoods to prevent garbage and pollution. Terre des Hommes also supports municipalities in improving environmental protection in the interests of the children and alleviating the consequences of overexploitation and climate catastrophes. In order for the environment to be protected for children, Terre des Hommes is committed to ensuring that children's rights become an important benchmark for political and economic decisions.
Information material on healthy environment
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Your contact persons
Jonas Schubert
Speaker Advocacy
Magdalena Firchau
Advocacy speaker