A/HRC/20/25/Add.1 ensure the provision of legal, social and health services for victims at the district level as required by the Law.28 B. Children and youth 32. Owing to elevated mortality rates during the Indonesian occupation and high birth rates since independence,29 the population of Timor-Leste is overwhelmingly young; 40 per cent of Timorese are under 14 years of age,30 and in rural areas more than half of the population is under 19 years old. As such, the future prosperity of Timor-Leste will depend largely on the investments it makes to develop the human capital of its youth. Today, children in poor households make up more than half of all people living in poverty in Timor-Leste.31 33. As children depend on their families, communities and the State for their survival and development, they are affected by the lack of or inadequate access to basic services. In particular, malnutrition poses a threat to the survival and development of more than half of Timorese children under 5. Chronic malnutrition is the result not only of a lack of food, but also of insufficient access to health-care facilities, poor feeding practices and lack of access to safe drinking water. 34. Half of all children in Timor-Leste are not formally registered,32 a factor which seriously undermines the State’s ability to design and implement policies that respond to the needs of children. The Special Rapporteur encourages the Government to continue to pursue innovative efforts to raise awareness of the issue, such as the 2011 National Birth Registration Campaign. It must also improve the legislative and institutional framework for birth registration in compliance with its obligation under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (art. 7). 35. Efforts must also be made to improve the situation of Timorese youth, among whom widespread poverty, low literacy levels, limited life opportunities and high rates of unemployment are still translating into disenfranchisement and frustration. 33 Much of the social unrest leading to the 2006 crisis was driven by youth who, lacking the means to constructively channel their dissatisfaction, turned to violence. 36. The primary vehicle to address these frustrations, reduce child poverty and improve the status of children and youth in Timor-Leste is education. Education is both a human right in itself, and an indispensable means of realizing other human rights. 37. The Special Rapporteur commends Timor-Leste for guaranteeing the right of every citizen to education in its Constitution and making provision for free and compulsory education from grades one to nine. The National Education Policy 2007–2012 recognizes the importance of preschool education, and the Government has committed to ensuring that at least half of Timorese children are enrolled in and receiving quality preschool education 28 29 30 31 32 33 Law No.7/1010 of 7 July 2010, chap. IV. Demographic and Health Survey, p. xxiii. 2010 Census (note 7 above). World Bank and Directorate of National Statistics, Timor-Leste, Timor-Leste: Poverty in a Young Nation, 2008, p. 11. 2010 Census and Demographic and Health Survey, pp. 28–29. Richard Curtain and Brent Taylor, ―Viewing young people as assets in the development process: key findings of a national survey in Timor Leste‖ (2005, UNICEF Timor-Leste); Lene Ostergaard ―Timor–Leste Youth Social Analysis Mapping and Youth Institutional Assessment‖ (2005, World Bank Timor-Leste). 11