Youth literacy rate in Bangladesh soars to 93%
Youth literacy rates in Bangladesh have risen to almost 93%, up from 62% in 2006 and 45% in 1991.
Child well-being
This archive tracks real progress in child well-being — from advances in nutrition, education, and mental health to policies that expand opportunity for young people worldwide. Each story focuses on what’s working and why, grounded in evidence rather than optimism alone.
Child and teen deaths worldwide fall by 50% from 1990 to 2017
New research in the journal JAMA Pediatrics found that deaths among children and adolescents fell from 13.77 million in 1990 to 6.64 million in 2017.
New therapy bot helps children with autism perfect their social skills
Robotics startup LuxAI has created QTrobot, a bot designed to help children with autism learn valuable social skills.
India aims to criminalize witch doctor practice of branding sick children with hot irons
When a traditional healer burned hot clay into the chest of two-year-old Kushbu Lal, she died. Now moves are afoot to criminalize a practice that continues to cost lives.
U.N. brokers deal to end use of children in Nigeria’s battle with Boko Haram
Officials hail landmark for child protection as youth vigilante group known as Civilian Joint Task Force pledges to draw a line under recruitment of minors
Cuba is the first country in the world to eliminate mother-to-child HIV and syphilis transmission
Cuba’s WHO validation showed the world something remarkable: with the right system behind it, transmitting HIV from mother to child can be reduced to near zero. This was achieved by weaving HIV testing, antiretroviral treatment, and prenatal care into a single national program reaching virtually every pregnant woman — dropping transmission risk dramatically. The honest caveat is that Cuba’s centralized health system made consistent implementation possible in ways that under-resourced or decentralized systems genuinely struggle to match. Still, the core proof is there — and other countries are already working toward the same goal.
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child enters into force worldwide
The Convention on the Rights of the Child entered into force on 2 September 1990, making children rights-holders under international law for the first time. Drafted at the UN and now ratified by 196 countries, it remains the most widely adopted human rights treaty ever — a quiet turning point in how the world sees childhood itself.
Global child mortality rate drops from 48% to 27% by mid-20th century
Child mortality, once the grim baseline of parenthood, began its great retreat in the 18th and 19th centuries and reached a turning point by 1950, when roughly 27% of children still died before age five, down from an estimated 40–50% across most of human history. Clean water, vaccines, and literacy quietly rewrote what families could expect.
Soviet Russia becomes the first modern state to legalize abortion
Soviet Russia legalized abortion in October 1920, becoming the first modern government to permit the procedure without restriction, and often for free. The decree aimed to move women away from underground providers and into hospitals — by 1925, roughly three-quarters of abortions in Moscow were performed in medical facilities. It was an early, imperfect test of treating reproductive health as medicine rather than crime.
Benjamin Thompson launches the first school lunch program in Munich
School lunch programs trace back to 1790s Munich, where American-born exile Benjamin Thompson opened the Poor People’s Institute. He fed children while teaching them to read and write, treating a hot meal as a practical investment rather than charity. Today, roughly 380 million schoolchildren worldwide receive meals through programs built on that quiet insight.