Earlier this year, a Kosovo-born football player, Liridon Krasniqi who plays for Malaysian football club Johor Darul Ta'zim (JDT) was naturalised and given a Malaysian citizenship. Many observers criticised the decision for granting a fast-tracked citizenship to the popular sportsman as thousands of other stateless people in Malaysia are still undocumented.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the prevalence of childhood obesity has increased at an alarming rate globally. In 2016, the number of overweight children under the age of five was estimated to be over 41 million.Southeast Asia has seen an upward trend in childhood obesity during the last 10 to 15 years. An estimated 6.6 million children under five years are currently overweight in the region.

Towards the end of 2018, Indonesian actress Ussy Sulistiawati filed reports against several Instagram users for having posted insults aimed at her children’s physical appearances.

Lao is looking to improve its education system. In this effort, it introduced a project called the “Inclusive, Child-friendly Environments and the Improvement of the Quality of Learning Outcomes of pre-and primary schools in Vientiane and Oudomxay provinces”.

While Southeast Asia is working hard for the shift into completely embracing the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and its citizens are getting excited about such things as blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT), the region is still struggling with something that mankind has been trying to fight off since the dawn of time – hunger.When the Global Hunger Organisation (GHO) revealed its 2019 results for the Global Hunger Index (GHI) it was painfully obvious that ASEAN member states are still r

Children around the world are not getting the nutrients they need, undermining their capacity to grow, develop and learn to their full potential. According to the State of the World’s Children 2019: children, food and nutrition’ report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), one in three children under five is not properly growing due to malnutrition.

Nutrition is central to the growth, cognitive development, school performance and future productivity of children.However, traditional and indigenous foods are slowly being cast aside in favour of modern diets that are low in nutrients and fibre but high in sugars and fats.Combined with busy lifestyles and budgetary concerns, malnutrition is taking a toll on a sizable portion of ASEAN children.A report yesterday by UNICEF, the United Nations’ children’s agency, warns that millions of

Early last month, following years of pressure from advocacy groups, Indonesia's Parliament revised its national laws to increase the legal age a girl can marry. The amendment to the Marriage Act raised the age of marriage for girls to 19 years old which is in line with the legal age for boys, with parental permission, while the legal age for men and women to marry without parental consent is 21.

Almost 20 million children missed out on potentially life-saving vaccinations last year, the United Nations (UN) said Monday, as surging measles cases highlighted "dangerous" gaps in efforts to shield kids from preventable illness.Last year, 19.4 million children were "not fully vaccinated", the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UNICEF children's agency said in an annual report – up from 18.7 million in 2017 and about 18.5 million the year before.This all pointe

Girls in developing countries must be protected from sexual violence in and around schools, the head of the United Nation's children fund (UNICEF) has said, urging governments to make it a top priority.Speaking on the side-lines of a G7 ministerial summit in Paris, UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore said keeping young girls safe was crucial to ensuring their education."We have a real responsibility to keep violence out of schools...