The grave global situation and the impact that this is having is described in the second annual End Of Childhood report published by non-governmental organisation Save the Children. It identifies armed conflict, widespread poverty and discrimination against girls as three critical ways in which the end of childhood occurs prematurely for more than 1.2 billion children - over half of children worldwide. More than 153 million children are at extreme risk of forgoing childhood because they live in countries characterised by all three threats.

Thankfully, Singapore has been named the best country in the world for children to grow up in in the latest report. This is testimony to the country's efforts to meet one of the fundamental criteria of a society: that even in an imperfect world plagued by war, poverty and disease, a country where children do not have a future literally has no future itself.