The United Nations Children's Emergency Fund, known universally as Unicef, in its 2016 report on the state of the world's children gives the global picture (it is not a pretty one) on the abuse and deprivation of children of basic rights such as education, food and opportunities for productive lives.
A projection by the report is that if there are no major changes in the environment in which children are raised by 2030, 167 million children will be living in abject poverty.
Sixty-nine million of such children will die from malnutrition and related conditions before they reach five years old, and 60 million children of primary school age will be out of school.
And here is a statistic, the reality of which must surely contribute to the suffering of children; 750 million women would have been married as child brides.
As experienced locally, physical and mental abuse of children, including rape, are the natural outcomes of the marrying-off of children usually to adult men.
In most instances it means the end of the education of girls, a life of subjugation and under-achievement and the denial of the child of a voice in their lives.
One of the major difficulties faced by children and focused upon by the Unicef Report is the inequity of opportunity that faces children. The inability of the parents of tens of millions of such children to provide them with the basics for a good quality life and the right environment for their personal development springs from this inequity.
"Children who do not have the opportunity to develop the skills they will need to compete as adults can neither break these vicious cycles in their own lives nor give their children a chance to fulfill their potential," states the report.
The creation of opportunities for such parents is a responsibility which has to be taken on by the state and the private sector.
The revival and expansion of economies, the training and re-training of adults to be able to get jobs in an economy are necessities for all countries if the United Nations 2030 goal of eradicating poverty and ending the abuse of children are to be achieved.
As the Unicef Report indicates bringing greater equity to the society is very much in the interest of national development. If the focus is placed narrowly on Trinidad and Tobago, achieving greater equity means that a large number and segment of the population will become far more productive. That will not only benefit the individuals who now cannot adequately look after themselves and their children, but it will benefit the entire national community.
As it is well-known, criminal activities flourish in communities of poverty and under-development. Segments of such communities, as they reflect on their condition, often blame the privileged parts of the society for their being left behind.
In the T&T context there has to be added to the poverty scenario of children and their parents, the sexual and physical brutality that is being revealed on a daily basis in media.
If the work of T&T's Children's Authority to date has demonstrated anything, it is that there is far more that needs to be done to save the children of the nation from continuing brutalisation in one form or the other by the adult society.
The government and institutions of T&T should however know and acknowledge the real story on the ground and realise that the Children's Authority needs additional resources, direction and the legislative power to begin to adequately tackle the problems faced by children; they are the future.