At least 40% of children on breadline in Kyrgyzstan

At least 40 percent of children in Kyrgyzstan live below the poverty line, Tim Schaffter, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Representative in Kyrgyzstan said Thursday at the forum devoted to the 20th Anniversary of the Adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Children in Bishkek, news agency "24.kg" reported.

The number of children living in impoverished conditions reached 900. "Level of children's education has gone down dramatically. Today 90 percent of high-school children do not have the required knowledge. Meantime, lack of teachers remains another urgent problem of the republic," Mr Shaffter said.

The speaker paid special attention to increasing maternal deaths in Kyrgyzstan. ""Up to 40 thousand families do not have birth certificates for their children," he said.