A/HRC/16/40 malnourished children are too weak to fight off illness or continue their school education. Malnutrition keeps children trapped in a cycle of poverty and lack of perspective.44 37. One telling example of the above-described situation is that of noma, a disease that devours the face of children, and is the brutal impersonation of severe malnutrition and extreme poverty. It affects children in many countries in Africa, including Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, the Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and the Sudan, parts of Asia and Latin America. Noma was eradicated from Europe and North America at the beginning of the twentieth century thanks to improved diets as a result of economic progress.. In its early stages, noma can be treated in a manner that is simple, effective and low-cost, with disinfecting mouthwashes, nutritious food and antibiotics.45 In the advanced stages, the death rate can reach 90 per cent. Survivors suffer threefold: disfigurement, functional impairment and intense social stigma and discrimination.46 Improving the diet of malnourished children, particularly in risk areas, could considerably reduce the death rate and the occurrence of this disease. For the time being, however, it is almost exclusively non-governmental organizations and charities that are working on the prevention of noma and reconstructive surgery. 38. As a result of the financial and economic crisis, the World Food Programme (WFP) has been confronted with a dramatic lack of funding and has been seriously hampered in its mission to ensure adequate food for the most food-insecure people around the world. Among the hardest hit are children who were benefitting from school feeding programmes or fortified blended food. In 2010, in Côte d’Ivoire, WFP was forced to halve the size of school meals for almost 430,000 children from regions where malnutrition rates were already above the World Health Organization (WHO) critical threshold,47 as such condemning these children to the deplorable consequences of malnutrition. 39. Child labour is a phenomenon closely related to discrimination in the context of the right to food. Children are forced into various forms of labour most often as a result of extreme poverty and the need to provide for food. Some 158 million children, or one child in six, aged from 5 to 14 years, are involved in child labour.48 Eradicating this phenomenon also requires dealing with issues affecting adult workers, since child labour is linked to adult poverty and the promotion of decent work at the conceptual and practical levels.49 F. Discrimination against refugees 40. Confronted with a dramatic shortage in funding, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and WFP are struggling to assure food for refugees and internally displaced persons. Despite the important efforts being made by European States, the United States of America and other countries to provide assistance and food aid in emergencies, serious funding shortfalls are threatening the lives of millions of people, in particular in Africa and Asia. 44 45 46 47 48 49 12 See www.unicefusa.org/work/nutrition. Kurt Bos and Klaas Marck, The Surgical Treatment of Noma (Uitgeverij Belvédere/Medidact, Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands, 2006), p.18. David E. Barmes and others, “The need for action against oro-facial gangrene (noma)”, Tropical Medicine and International Health, vol. 2, no. 12 (December 1997). World Food Programme (WFP), “WFP reduces rations for 460,000 children in Côte d'Ivoire”, 5 March 2010. Available from www.wfp.org/news/news-release/wfp-reduces-rations-460000-childrencote-divoire. See www.unicef.org/progressforchildren/2007n6/index_41846.htm. ILO, “Future harvests without child labour”, World of Work 61 (December 2007).