A report on human rights record in the United States issued by China Thursday reveals that there are 12.8 million children under the age of 18 living in poverty in the United States, accounting for 17.4 percent of the country's children population.
The report quoted statistics from the US Census Bureau as saying that Children account for 35.2 percent of the impoverished population in the United States and 19.3 percent children have no medical insurance in the country.
"American juveniles often fall victims of abuses and crimes," says the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2007, released by the Information Office of the State Council of China.
In 2005, 57 out of 1,000 American students above the age of 12 were victims of violence and property crimes, according to the figure released by the Department of Justice in December 2007.
It is reported that in some middle schools in Baltimore, many students go to school with weapons like knives.
A survey by the US Congress shows that as many as 4.5 million students, out of roughly 50 million in American schools, are subject to sexually misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade.
In addition, a report mandated by Congress said thousands of teenagers suffered terrible abuses at boot camps, some even lost their lives.
Journal left by 16-year-old Aaron Bacon, who died from an untreated perforated ulcer in 1994, revealed that he spent 14 of 20 days without any food but was forced to hike 13 to 16 kilometers everyday. When he was given food, it consisted of undercooked lentils, lizards and scorpions.
His father said that he had been beaten from the top of his head to the tip of his toes during his month at the camp.
In another case, Martin Lee Anderson, 14, died in a boot camp in 2006 after guards choked him and forced him to inhale in ammonia fumes.
Houston Chronicle reported that a survey by the United Nations on 21 rich countries showed that though the United States was among the world's richest nations, it ranked only the 20th in the overall well-being of children. In the dimension of health and security, the United States was at the very bottom of the ranking.
(Xinhua News Agency March 13, 2008)
