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Summary: In its 2013 State of the World’s Children Report, UNICEF has chosen to highlight the particular issues, needs, and circumstances of children with disabilities worldwide. The report includes a description of the common issues that children with disabilities face, models for inclusive policy and practice, and an agenda for action moving forward.
In its 2013 State of the World's Children Report, UNICEF has chosen to highlight the particular issues, needs, and circumstances ofchildren with disabilities worldwide. The report describes ways in which responses to the situations children with disabilities face often do not grant them the opportunity to flourish and are largely limited to institutionalization, abandonment, or neglect. The report features powerful personal testimonies and recommendations from children with disability, parents, and advocates. In one such section entitled " Segregation and abuse in institutions", the President and the Executive Director of the NGO Disability Rights International highlight the high prevalence of institutionalization among children with disabilities worldwide and the abuses they commonly suffer in these institutions. They also point out that that institutionalization for children with disability rarely ends with childhood. Instead, "millions of children with disabilities are separated from their families and placed in orphanages, boarding schools, psychiatric facilities and social care homes. Children who survive institutions face the prospect of lifetime segregation from society in facilities for adults." Among the other common problems and injustices that children with disabilities face are: discrimination; exclusion from education, health, and other public arenas; and unequal access to resources. In order to combat these issues, UNICEF calls on governments, organizations, and individuals to focus on the full inclusion of these children in all realms of life (i.e. family, community, society, etc.), says the report. The report also includes a section on the "Fundamentals of Inclusion" that provides models of inclusive policy and practice, as well as examples of successfully inclusive programs and initiatives. It concludes with an "Agenda for Action," which offers its suggestions for fighting discrimination, dismantling barriers to inclusion, ending institutionalization, supporting families, moving beyond minimum standards, coordinating services to support the child, and involving children in decision-making.