At a time of unprecedented global prosperity, almost a million children in Liberia still live in what the World Bank categorizes as absolute poverty. Many of these children are stripped of all human dignity as their parents struggle to survive on US$1.00 a day, and in conditions of almost unimaginable suffering and want.

Children in Liberia are experiencing one of the worst chances of survival in the world on a daily basis. The lack of education, healthcare, safe water, adequate sanitation, proper hygiene and treated garbage pose the greatest threat to the growth, livelihood and living standard of children.

One in four children in Liberia falls prey to death before their fifth birthday due to preventable diseases such as measles, diarrhea, and malaria. For instance, diarrhea is the leading cause of preventable death amongst children says UNICEF, and WATERAID. Yet, this gigantic killer of children is systematically neglected by the Ministries of Health and Social Welfare (MOH), Youth and Sports, Education, Gender and Development in favor of the reckless and bogus policies of the MOH that depicts inter-country adoption as child trafficking, which it is not.

By the Ministry of Health (MOH) sensationalizing an issue like adoption only to provoke upheaval is irresponsible and careless, especially when those in positions of TRUST knows fully well the comprehension level of our people given our country’s literacy rate of 20 percent. This is not constructive leadership, and those who watch from the sidelines and do nothing share equal responsibility for the socioeconomic and legal predicament of our children. They too acquiesce into playing despicable politics with the lives of innocent children.

Here’s where the Children of Liberia are this Christmas:

Over 75% of them struggle with daunting and dehumanizing social challenges resulting in 25% of them dying before age 5;  

Over 40% of them do not have safe, accessible drinking water;

Over 19% of them die from diarrhea and infectious conditions caused by waterborne diseases;

Over 75% of them do not have access to adequate toilets;

Over 36% of them die from malaria and other poverty-related illnesses;

Over 85% of them have no access to adequate waste management or hygiene practices;

Over 37% of children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition with 7% of them suffering from acute malnutrition, causing stunting in nearly one-third, and leaving 1 in 5 underweight.

Over 500,000 children in Liberia are not in school. UNICEF says, of those enrolled in school, 42% of them sit on the bare floor without desks, or properly trained teachers to provide appropriate instructions, and adequate books to learn from;

Over 230,000 children are unparented, orphaned and abandoned with no strategic planning from the Ministry of Health and others on critical children’s issues except for the sensational, reckless and bogus claim that Inter-country adoption is child trafficking. By officials presenting distorted, deliberate and confusing views on Inter-country adoption, without a game plan to improve the lives of children, but simply to coax public discontent on adoption and garner mass support against International adoption, is irresponsible and careless. This is not leadership, it is cowardice. From 2003 to 2008 only 1,200 Liberian children were adopted from Liberia to the United States, providing unparented, homeless, abandoned and orphaned children with homes and loving parents. How then can anyone in their right mind call this child trafficking?

Corruption, patronage, mismanagement, squalor and harsh environmental conditions still exacerbate conditions of poverty amongst children across Liberia. These conditions cause many parents to abandon their children to institutions, orphanages, the streets and adoption. Since 2006, the Sirleaf administration has devoted between 14-20 per cent of the national budgets to basic social services -- health, education, nutrition, sanitation, waste collection and clean water -- that benefit children most. This author believes that the Sirleaf administration needs to invest at a bare minimum 30 per cent of the country’s annual budget to basic services affecting children and promulgate targeted policies to enhance and improve their lives.

The past three decades has produced little or no progress for children in Liberia. However, there are reasons for hope over the next 7 years under the leadership of President Sirleaf. But, leaders in the Sirleaf administration will have to muster the political will in order to fundamentally root significant social transformation that specifically benefits children and their families.

Additionally, the Sirleaf administration must forged new alliances with all civil society groups not only with those that are supporters and allies. But, also with those who are critics and detractors, and who by their standing can objectively offer constructive alternatives to tackling preventable diseases, providing safe drinking water, promoting adequate toilets, and encourage hygiene promotion at every sector of society. However, this must be a genuine effort of engagement by both sides.

Liberians are desirous of strengthening the health, education and social systems, and seeing to it that the political process is open, transparent and accountable in budgeting and governance protocols to ensure that meaningful changes are rooted in the everyday lives of children. This is the test and yardstick from which to measure true leadership that must be demonstrated in 2010 for the sake of the children and not for politics, patronage, party, ethnicity or family connection.

Today, Liberia is not on target of meeting most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 as agreed to at the United Nations in 2000. The MDGs set a framework for how the world could see the end of extreme poverty by the world’s poorest. The eight MDGs reflect an understanding of the devastation caused by global hunger and poverty and aim for a world that is free of such suffering. MDGs are to reduce hunger, provide access to primary education, and provide access to clean water; prevent children from dying of poverty-related illnesses, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Under the Sirleaf administration, Liberia has the means and the knowledge to protect and develop the lives of its children and diminish enormously their suffering. However, the administration must now muster the means, garner the political will and apply the practical knowledge, which exist on the ground, to make good on its promises to the children of Liberia. This author believes that the Sirleaf administration should affirm children's rights by improving children’s health, education, sanitation, water, and hygiene as critical stimulus to improving the prospects for their success.

I addition, until the new adoption act is passed into law by the legislature, children with court decrees from the Probate Court of Liberia granting them permission to be parented by none-biological parents under the Domestic Relations Laws of Liberia should be grandfather into the process and be allowed to be reunited with their adoptive families in America. This is the right and prudent thing to do especially doing this holiday season. Throughout the 2010 New Year, the Sirleaf administration must declare that the concerns of children will be at the centre of its national agenda, and Poverty Reduction Strategy deliverables.

Francis Nyepon is Country Director of the West African Children Support Network (WACSN), and managing partner of DUCOR Waste Management in Liberia. He is a policy analyst and Vice Chair of the Center for Security and Development Studies, and serves on several boards of humanitarian, environmental and human rights organizations in the United States and Liberia. He can be reached at fnyepon@Gmail.com.