So far this year, more than 644,000 refugees and migrants have arrived in Europe by sea. Of these, just over a third – 34 per cent – are women and children who are particularly vulnerable to abuse as they transit Europe, UNHCR said.

“Refugee and migrant children moving in Europe are at heightened risk of violence and abuse, including sexual violence, especially in overcrowded reception sites, or in many locations where refugees and migrants gather, such as parks, train stations, bus stations and roadsides,” UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming told a news conference in Geneva.

“From testimony and reports we have received there have been instances of children engaging in survival sex to pay smugglers to continue their journey, either because they have run out money, or because they have been robbed,” she added.

Fleming noted that unaccompanied children can be particularly vulnerable as they lack the protection and care of an adult. They may also be placed in detention in some countries, including with adults, posing great risks to them, she said.

Refugee and migrant women travelling on their own are also at heightened risk as they move through Europe, sometimes at night, along insecure routes or staying in places that lack basic security. Many reception centres are overcrowded, and lack adequate lighting and separated spaces for single women and families with children.

UNHCR is appealing to all concerned national authorities in Europe to take measures to ensure the protection of women and girls, including through providing adequate and safe reception facilities.

The refugee agency is also calling to all authorities, as a matter of urgency, to find alternatives to the detention of children. UNHCR and partners are working to prevent and address immediately family separations, as women and girls on their own face enhanced risks.

Together with partners, UNHCR are working with authorities to ensure access to information, to enhance the identification of persons with specific needs, including unaccompanied children, and their referral to appropriate services, to provide psychosocial support and to enhance reception areas, including through the provision of safe spaces.

She still relives the trauma of September 10, when an unidentified vessel rammed into the smuggler’s trawler that was carrying Doaa and more than 500 other people, including many women and children, who dreamed of reaching Europe. The vessel quickly sank off the east coast of Malta; there were just 11 survivors.

The young woman, who showed tremendous courage in saving one baby and trying to keep another alive during the three days she spent in the water before being rescued by a Greek vessel and taken to Crete, says she is even more determined to reach Sweden where she has relatives.

But her resilience and determination to survive and to try and save others has inspired many people in Greece, including the local authorities in the Crete port of Chania, were she was taken after being rescued by a Greek Navy helicopter. People there believe that Doaa should be given Greek nationality for her bravery.

“What she did – suppressing the instinct for self-preservation and trying to save two babies – is astounding,” said Dimitris Nikolakakis, a senior public health and welfare official in Chania.

Doaa’s story begins in the south-western Syria town of Dera’a, where she was born and grew up in a family of nine. But as the war escalated, her family decided to flee to nearby Jordan in 2012 before making their way to Egypt. Doaa was just 16 at the time.

She spent two-and-a-half years in the northern Egyptian resort of Gamasa, where she worked as a seamstress to help supplement the money her father made as a barber. But Doaa believed there was no future in Syria or Egypt and so she decided, like thousands of others, to try and reach Europe by boat despite the news of ever more horrendous sinkings and deaths on the high seas.

“Three thousand people have drowned so far this year in the Mediterranean. It is unbelievable that such tragic loss of life takes place on Europe’s doorstep,” said Laurens Jolles, UNHCR’s regional representative for southern Europe.

But Doaa and her fiancé, Bassem, went ahead and found a place on a trawler that was used to smuggle refugees and migrants from Egypt to southern Europe. Four days after the trawler set sail from Damietta in the Nile Delta, it was stopped by another boat. “The people on it asked us to stop. They threw pieces of metal and wood at us and swore at our captain,” recalled Doaa. “Our boat refused to stop and they circled us and rammed us. They waited until we had sunk and they left.”

The trawler sank in minutes. Most of the passengers were below decks. “Some people grabbed ropes hanging from the ship’s masts to save themselves. Some were cut to pieces by the propeller when they fell into the water. Most drowned,” Doaa said. “We were from Sudan, Africa, Egypt, Syria, some from Libya, some Palestinians from Gaza.”

Doaa found herself in the water with 100 or so survivors, shocked and bewildered at the murderous behaviour they had just seen. She grabbed a life belt and looked around for her fiancé. She realized he must have gone down with the boat.

For three days, the survivors floated in the Mediterranean without food or drinking water. They were at the mercy of the winds and currents – and gradually they started to die. “Some people died of stress; others willed it to happen,” Doaa noted. “One man took off his own life vest and sank. Some died of fear, some of cold. The weather was rough. It was cloudy and cold.”

People began to ask Doaa to take care of their children. A man with his one-year-old granddaughter handed over the child and Doaa put it on her life belt. “Then a mother came with an 18-month-old baby girl and a six-year-old boy and asked me to take care of the baby and I kept it too. I watched the grandfather and the mother and her son die.”

Doaa said the goal of saving the two babies increased her determination to survive. She was rescued by a Liberian-flagged vessel some 90 nautical miles south-west of Crete on September 13. “The one year-old baby died just as we were about to be picked up” and taken to Chania. The other child rallied and recovered.

UNHCR’s Jolles said Doaa’s ordeal and the number of people who drowned was yet another sign of the need to do more to resolve the problem of people risking all to reach Europe. “There is an urgent need for a joint European response, based on collaboration among states and European Union support,” he said.

“For the moment, an efficient rescue operation needs to be maintained aimed at saving lives, in absence of other available alternatives,” Jolles stressed in a clear reference to the Italian Navy’s operation which has rescued 150,000 people at sea since late October 2013, including many people in need of international protection.

Doaa, meanwhile, waits alone to hear what her future will bring after such a costly journey. She was recently moved from Chania to the Greek mainland and is staying with a Greek family as the authorities try to locate her family in Sweden.

Source: UNHCR. John Psaropoulos in Athens, Greece contributed to this story

“Lead poisoning remains one of the most important environmental health concerns for children globally, and lead paint is a major flashpoint for children’s potential lead poisoning,” said the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director for Public Health and Environment, Maria Neira.

“The good news is that exposure to lead paint can be entirely stopped through a range of measures to restrict the production and use of lead paint.”

On the occasion of International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of Action, WHO chose to highlight the role that governments play in protecting the health of workers, children and women of reproductive age through the adoption of procedures to eliminate the use of lead decorative paints and the provision information to the public on renovation of homes where lead paint may have already been applied.

The Week of Action runs from 20-26 October 2013. This year’s theme – Lead-Free Kids for a Healthy Future – underscores the importance of avoiding the use of lead paint and using safe alternatives in order to prevent children coming to harm from lead poisoning.

Lead paint may be found in the home, on toys, furniture and on other objects. Decaying lead paint on walls, furniture and other interior surfaces creates lead-contaminated dust in the home that young children easily ingest. Mouthing lead-painted toys and other objects also exposes young children to lead. The sweet taste of lead paint means that some children even pick off and swallow small chips of paint.

WHO estimates that 143,000 deaths per year result from lead poisoning, with lead paint is a major contributor. Exposure also contributes to 600,000 new cases of children with intellectual disabilities every year, and the vast majority – 99 per cent – of children affected by high exposure to lead live in low- and middle-income countries.

Exposure to lead creates health problems for many years into the future. Even in countries that have banned leaded paint decades previously, such paint continues to be a source of exposure until it is finally stripped and replaced. The cost of replacing lead paint means that people living in older, poorly-maintained housing are particularly at risk, and this disproportionately affects economically-deprived communities.

“Paints with extremely high levels of lead are still available in most of the developing countries where paint testing has been conducted as part of the efforts of the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead Paint,” said David Piper, the Deputy Director of the UN Environment Programme Division of Technology, Industry and Economics (UNEP DTIE) Chemicals Branch. “In most of the countries with lead paint, equivalent paint with no added lead is also available, suggesting that alternatives to lead are readily available to manufacturers.”

Worldwide, 30 countries have already phased out the use of lead paint. The Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead Paint, co-led by WHO and UNEP, has set a target of 70 countries by 2015.

At high levels of exposure, lead damages the brain and central nervous system to cause coma, convulsions and even death. Children who survive such poisoning are often left with intellectual impairment and behavioural disorders.

At lower levels of exposure, lead affects brain development in children, resulting in reduced IQ, behavioural changes such as shortening of attention span and increased antisocial behaviour, and reduced educational attainment. These effects are believed to be irreversible. Adults are at increased risk of kidney disease and raised blood pressure.

“As the African Union is taking a larger role in the continent’s mediation and peacekeeping operations, it had become essential to make our partnership stronger,” said Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.

Her office and the Peace and Security Department of the AU Commission signed an agreement on 17 September, in partnership with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), to step up measures to protect children from armed violence.

“A significant number of children affected by armed conflict live on the African continent. With this agreement, my Office will work even more closely with the African Union and UNICEF to respond to their plight,” Ms. Zerrougui said.

Among the areas of collaboration outlined in the document, the AU, with UN support, agrees to include the protection of children in all its peace and security activities.

The agreement also calls for the development of a joint programme of work to align domestic legislation with regional and international child rights, as well as to develop guidelines on protection of children.

In addition, improved and harmonized training programmes in child protection will be developed for countries contributing troops to AU peace missions.

“We welcome this collaboration to ensure that protecting children is central to the work of the African Union,” said El-Ghassim Wane, Director of the Department of Peace and Security at the AU Commission.

“We know that we cannot succeed in building a prosperous and just future for the continent if we do not do everything in our collective power to protect them from the scourge of violence and war,” Mr. Wane added.

Addressing the 24th Session of the Human Rights Council, which began last week in Geneva, Ms. Zerrougui noted that the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) signed Action Plans to end the recruitment and use of children, as well as sexual violence against children.

The Transitional Government of Somalia signed a similar Action Plan as well as another one to end killing and maiming of children, the first time a Government made such a commitment.

UNICEF spokesperson Marixie Mercado told reporters in Geneva the agency and its partners have already delivered learning materials for over 90,000 students, and during the coming school year, 9,000 teachers will receive training and temporary learning spaces will be set up, while schools are refurbished or repaired.

Since January 2012, a rebellion of ethnic Tuareg groups followed by an insurgency of Islamist extremists displaced hundreds of thousands in Mali and prompted the Government to request assistance from France to halt the southward march of the extremists.

The conflict caused a dire humanitarian crisis affecting many areas in the north, including Gao and Bourem, where the rate of global acute malnutrition stands at 13.5 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively, making it a “serious” nutrition situation according to UN classification.

The conflict also destroyed or damaged around 200 schools. Many reopened earlier this year, and classrooms in Gao and Timbuktu were packed with students, who in many cases, sat on the floor because there was no furniture. In the south, already overcrowded classrooms saw an influx of about 75,000 displaced students.

Ms. Mercado added that while the agency plans to scale up its operations, funding is still a constraint, with just 27 per cent of the $12 million sought for emergency education received so far this year.

“Whether because of damage to buildings or because of the overall insecurity, nearly two thirds of our students in Syria will not be able to return to their schools this fall,” UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness said in a press release.

He added that in addition to disrupting their education, the closures make it even harder for children to maintain a sense of continuity in an already difficult situation.

Of the UN agency’s 118 schools in Syria, only 49 will reopen for the 2013-2014 school year.

UNRWA said it is working on alternatives, such as broadcasting classes on its television channel and developing long-distance learning materials.

“The situation in Syria is a great challenge, but it has only increased the importance of ensuring that Palestine refugees have access to high-quality and continued education,” said Caroline Pontefract, UNRWA Director of Education.

Since fighting began in March 2011 between the Syrian Government and opposition groups seeking to oust President Bashar Al-Assad as many as 100,000 people have been killed, almost 2 million have fled to neighbouring countries and a further 4 million have been internally displaced. In addition, at least 6.8 million Syrian require urgent humanitarian assistance, half of whom are children.

Following a visit to the region in July, Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, said without a political solution to the conflict in Syria, the country faces “a generation of angry, illiterate adults.”

She said schools in the region are trying to assist Syrian children, but challenges remain stemming from discrepancies in curriculum, capacity and language.

In Lebanon, which hosts around 50,000 Palestine refugees, only about 35 per cent of students are enrolled in school, according to UNRWA figures.

B’Tselem said that since November 2009, it has received testimonies from dozens of Palestinian residents of the Bethlehem and al-Khalil, most of them minors, saying that they were subjected to threats and violence, sometimes amounting to torture, during their interrogation at the police station at Gush Etzion.

The testimonies describe interrogations in which the minors were forced to confess to alleged offenses, mostly stone-throwing.

The report included the testimony of a minor, aged 14 from Husan in Bethlehem. He said “The interrogator made me go into a room. He grabbed my head and started banging it against the wall. Then he punched me, slapped me and kicked my legs. The pain was immense, and I felt like I couldn’t stand any longer.”

“Then he started swearing at me. He said filthy things about me and about my mother. He threatened to rape me, or perform sexual acts on me, if I didn’t confess to throwing stones,” the child added.

He said: “His threats really scared me, because he was very cruel and it was just the two of us in the room. I remembered what I’d seen on the news, when British and American soldiers raped and took photos of naked Iraqis.”

B’Tselem reported that until July 2013 its field researchers collected 64 testimonies from residents of eight communities in the southern West Bank who reported such incidents. “Fifty-six of them were minors at the time of their interrogation.”

“The Jordanian authorities must ensure safe access to Jordan for all those wishing to seek safety without discrimination,” said Said Boumedouha, Acting Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

“Persons fleeing Syria should not be denied entry even on a temporary basis as this puts their lives in danger. Jordan has an obligation under international law to ensure that its borders stay open to receive refugees.”

Since Wednesday 14 August, Syrian national Amina and her six children have been denied entry to Jordan at the official Nasib border crossing, the organization has learned. Jordanian border officials granted them entrance visas but told them that they could not enter Jordan for one month. Their passports were stamped with the message: “Return in one month”.

Other families were also reportedly turned away, both at Nasib and other border crossings.

Amina and her family are unable to return to their small hometown, Dera’a al-Hara, as it has been attacked and besieged by Syrian government forces. They have been stuck in no-man’s land between the Jordan and Syria border crossing points since 14 August.

“We have no water, no bread and are forced to sleep on the road with about one hundred other families,” Amina said.

The family is struggling to survive by eating what fruit it can find on nearby trees.

Amina told Amnesty International that their home had been hit by a rocket. Other residents from Dera’a al-Hara said that tens of bodies are lying in the town’s streets. Security forces have not allowed the few inhabitants who remained to bury them, they said.

The town is in the south-western governorate of Dera’a where mass protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s government began in March 2011 and were met with excessive and lethal force by the security forces.

For some months Jordan has not allowed certain categories of people to enter, including Palestinian and Iraqi refugees from Syria, people without identity documents or single men.

This new development of Syrians holding valid passports being turned away may indicate a further hardening of the Jordanian authorities’ position.

Recent moves by the Jordanian authorities to deny entry to Syrians with correct identity documents signals Jordan’s growing weariness to host half a million refugees from Syria, with no end to the crisis in sight.

The influx of refugees has placed a strain on Jordan’s infrastructure. It has created an increased demand for water, electricity, housing, schools and food. Some residential areas are struggling to accommodate particularly large refugee populations and frustration among many sectors of the population has grown, as rents and competition for jobs increase.

“Regardless of overstretched resources, the Jordanian authorities still have an obligation to ensure that all those fleeing have access to it’s territory and to safety ,” said Said Boumedouha.

“Crucially, the international community must ensure that Jordan and other hosting countries have the financial and technical support they need to provide adequate protection and assistance for the refugees from Syria.”

UNICEF said it will be able to procure and distribute urgently needed polio vaccines, and prevent the further spread of the virus across the Horn of Africa nation and into neighbouring countries with the $1.3 million provided by the Japanese Government.

“Lack of access to routine immunization in Somalia has created the largest known reservoir of unvaccinated children in a single geographic area in the world. The total number of Somali children who had never been vaccinated between 2008 and 2012 was estimated to reach a million,” says Sikander Khan, UNICEF Somalia Representative.

“The poliovirus in such a large reservoir has the potential to result in a catastrophic outbreak, the likes of which are beginning to be seen and as such constitutes an international emergency,” he added in a news release.

In May, a two-year-old girl from the capital, Mogadishu, became the first confirmed case of polio in Somalia in more than six years. The country had been polio-free since March 2007.

As of July, the virus has paralyzed 95 Somali children: 94 confirmed cases in South Central Zone, which includes Mogadishu, and a case in Somaliland. Another nine cases have also been reported in the Dadaab camp in Kenya – the largest refugee complex in the world.

With the help of UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO), Somali communities have launched emergency vaccination campaigns to boost their low polio vaccination coverage. The country currently has the second lowest coverage in the world at 47 per cent, after Equatorial Guinea.

So far, polio vaccines were prepared for six immunization campaigns between May and August, and five rounds have already been carried out. However, vaccines for additional campaigns between September and December have not yet been secured.

More than 2.8 million children under the age of 10 are expected to benefit from Japan’s contribution, which will cover more than 5 million doses of oral polio vaccines for two rounds of immunization activities in the coming months.

UNICEF has been working to support partners and local communities to minimize the scale of this outbreak. However, it warned that frequent movement of people within and between Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan could transport the virus further from Somalia to the entire Horn of Africa.

Before the new outbreak, the worldwide number of polio cases had decreased by more than 99 per cent from 350,000 in 1988 to 223 cases in 2012 with active cases reported in only three endemic countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.

“The outbreak in Somalia, if not controlled quickly, could jeopardize global efforts to wipe out polio once and for all,” UNICEF warned.

“Disturbing images of children taken during street protests indicate that, on some occasions, children have been deliberately used and put at risk as potential witnesses to or victims of violence,” Philippe Duamelle, UNICEF Representative in Egypt, said in a statement.

“Such actions can have a long-lasting and devastating physical and psychological impact on children,” he noted.

“We call on all Egyptians and political groups not to exploit children for political ends, and to protect them from any potential harm.”

The crisis in the country escalated earlier this month, resulting in the Egyptian military deposing President Mohamed Morsy amid widespread protests in which dozens of people were killed and wounded. The Constitution was then suspended and an interim Government set up.

Amid the political unrest in Egypt, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, have repeatedly called on authorities to ensure respect for the rule of law and international human rights standards.

They have also supported the right of all Egyptians to hold peaceful protests, while also urging all sides to act with maximum restraint.