Will the Gaza Genocide Spell the Death of “Children First”? : Adam Fifield

Linkedin article shared by Niloufar Pourzand

May 25, 2025

The late James P. Grant, the former head of UNICEF and the greatest children’s advocate ever, was fond of saying: “No one can say no to children.”

In the early 1980s, Grant and his allies launched the “child survival and development revolution,” putting the needs, rights, and well-being of children on the world stage as never before.

This global effort, which included an unprecedented immunization campaign, is estimated to have saved the lives of 25 million children during Grant’s tenure at UNICEF and tens of millions more after his death in 1995. It also put the idea of humanitarian ceasefires into widespread practice; spurred the creation of the Millennium Development Goals and, in turn, the Sustainable Development Goals; propelled mass ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child; and completely altered the face of international development.

At the center of it was a simple moral imperative: Put children first. At the 1990 World Summit for Children, Grant addressed what was then the largest gathering of world leaders ever. He told them:
“We here today can raise a new standard for children of the years to come, and on that standard, on that banner, is writ large a principle — the principle of a first call for our children, the principle that children should be the first to benefit from mankind’s successes and the last to suffer from its failures.”

Over the next few decades, not everyone listened—but many did. The world came together, united by a common purpose: save and protect children. Beyond the global movement to boost immunization rates and advance other basic health interventions, the welfare of children was institutionalized in the laws and policies of nations across the globe.

It was not ironclad, nor was it perfect. Bad actors still subjected children to conflict, trafficking, forced labor, and other ills, and children still perished from preventable diseases. But the number of children dying declined notably and has been steadily dropping each year—despite a rise in population over the decades. Since 1990, the global under-five mortality rate has fallen by 61 per cent, according to UNICEF.

The investments made during the child survival revolution, coupled with ongoing efforts in countries throughout the world, are yielding lifesaving dividends to this day. And because of goals set during the World Summit for Children—the precursors to the Sustainable Development Goals—progress in improving child health and survival is consistently tracked and measured. So, when a country starts failing behind, everyone knows it.

The child survival revolution was, by any measure, an extraordinary triumph—and certainly one of the United Nations' most shining successes. Its most important, most lasting, impact was Grant’s “first call for our children,” which made children a top priority for policymakers and civil servants and decision-makers everywhere.

Fast-forward to 2025, and Trump and Musk have unceremoniously desecrated this ideal by shuttering USAID and needlessly and gleefully slashing lifesaving aid programs. All of this will surely cause a backslide in the hard-won, decades-long fight to reduce child mortality. Which is a stomach-turning shame. Why anyone would endorse policies that literally kill children is beyond me.

Then again, we are in a dark, defining moment for humanity. If Trump is desecrating Grant’s “first call for children,” Israel and its allies are eviscerating it.

Among the 2 million people trapped in Gaza—who are being mercilessly shot, bombed, and deliberately starved as the world watches—half are children. Each day brings revolting images and videos of dead children, bloodied and dull-eyed, pulled like limp dolls from beneath slabs of rubble. Or videos of parents collecting pieces of their shredded sons and daughters in plastic bags. I’ve read almost all of Stephen King’s books, and none of them contain anything this horrific.

These images should shock us to our core. More than that, they should move us to act. The fact that western governments continue to support this barbarism and that so many people still remain silent—and still refuse to act—is simply perverse.

Why are the adults of the world allowing this? What the hell is wrong with us?

The western-backed, livestreamed torture and murder of babies and toddlers and teenagers is doing irreparable harm to the cause of children—not just in Gaza, but everywhere.

A terrible precedent is being set: Not children first, not even children last—children are simply trash be to discarded.

I do believe attitudes and perspectives are starting to shift on the Gaza genocide—very slowly, in dribs and drabs, more people are speaking up and calling a thing what it is.

But not enough people, not nearly.

If you care about children’s rights, this is your moment to stand up—right now. If you don’t stand up, you are signaling your acquiescence to a horrible new ideal that says it is perfectly okay to starve children and rip their little bodies into pieces—if it suits the needs of the powers that be.

In this moment, it’s more important than ever to keep Jim Grant’s legacy alive. Put children first—everywhere and always.

Adam Fifield is an author, journalist, and communications expert. He wrote a biography of Jim Grant, A Mighty Purpose: How Jim Grant Sold the World on Saving It's Children.