ABSTRACT
The Aral Sea—once the fourth largest inland sea in the world—is being drained dry by irrigation. Families living on its salt-caked shores in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are exposed to the double burden of economic transition and massive environmental degradation. The combination has plunged these families into extreme poverty and has seriously threatened their children's well-being. With sanitation and hygiene poor, nutrition intake lowered, and health-care systems in disarray, child mortality rates have risen. Given the collapse of state-supported health care and educational services, the situation of children and families is likely to worsen.
