The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) on Sunday urged the South Asian governments to urgently address child poverty, saying over 300 million of the 613 million children in the region are trapped in absolute poverty.

“Due to persistent and deep inequalities, children in South Asia become trapped in an unrelenting cycle of discrimination at several levels -- poor nutrition, health and sanitation and being excluded from education.

This puts a child’s face to chronic poverty so we can now design more strategic policies,” Unicef Regional Director for South Asia, Daniel Toole said. He was speaking at the opening session of a three-day regional conference on “Achieving Child Wellbeing and Equity in South Asia” at Hotel Radisson in the capital.

Addressing the session as the chief guest, Planning Minister AK Khandkar said of the 63 million children in Bangladesh, 26.5 million live in poverty. The government, however, has taken up a good number of initiatives to address not only the poverty of the children, but all in general.

“Social protection, especially for the children, would be one of the highest priority agenda in the upcoming Perspective Plan (2010-2021) and Sixth Five Year Plan (2011-2015),” said the minister. AK Khandkar said a common understanding of child poverty and disparities for achieving child wellbeing and equity in South Asia would provide a strong platform to work collectively.

According to Daniel Toole of Unicef, poverty affects children – not just as a side effect of their parents’ income but their own profound deprivation, and that children’s seven basic needs -- food, education, health, information, shelter, water and sanitation must be addressed to end children’s poverty.

Minister for Women and Children Affairs Shirin Sharmin Chaudhary, Nepal’s Planning Commission Vice Chair Dr Yubaraj Khatiwada, Maldives Deputy Minister of Health and Family Mariya Ali, Saarc Director (Information of poverty alleviation) Niranjan Basnyat and officials and development experts from Saarc were present.