Orphans and Vulnerable Children

• By 2010, the number of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS globally is expected to reach 20 million. (Global AIDS Alliance)
• More than 90 percent of all orphans in sub-Saharan Africa are cared for by their extended families. (UNICEF)
• Less than 10 percent of children orphaned and made vulnerable by AIDS are receiving any type of support. (UNICEF)
• In sub-Saharan Africa, by 2005, 15 million children had lost a parent to AIDS. (AVERT)
• Twelve percent of all children in sub-Saharan Africa are orphans. One quarter of them lost a parent to HIV/AIDS. (UNICEF)
• In 11 of the 43 countries in Africa, more than 15 percent of children are orphans, where AIDS is the cause of parental death from 11 to 78 percent of the time. (UNICEF)
• AIDS is more likely than any other cause of death to create double orphans - children who have lost BOTH parents. (UNICEF)
• In 2001, 15 percent of children in 10 sub-Saharan African countries had lost one or more parents to AIDS. (World Bank)
• There are 143 million orphans worldwide as a result of all causes. (UNICEF)
• Children whose mothers are dying or have already died are nearly four times more likely to die within the following two years than children whose mothers are healthy. (UNICEF)
• An estimated US$4.7 billion will be needed in 2007-2008 to meet the needs of OVC. (UNAIDS)

• The U.S. government (through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) reported spending US$225 million on OVC in 2007 - less than .7 percent of the U.S. foreign aid budget. (U.S. Department of State)

To learn more about Orphans and Vulnerable Children, click here.

HIV/AIDS and Children

• Every 15 seconds, a young adult between the ages of 15 and 24 is infected with HIV. (UNICEF)
• Nine out of 10 children living with HIV/AIDS and eight out of every 10 children who have lost parents to AIDS live in Africa. (AVERT)
• In 2006, 530,000 children under 15 were infected with HIV. That’s more than 1,450 every day. (Global AIDS Alliance)
• Less than 5 percent of HIV-positive children under the age of 15 in need of anti-retroviral medicine receive it. (UNICEF)
• Eighty percent of children with HIV die by age five without treatment; 80 percent are alive at age six with ARV treatment. (Global AIDS Alliance)
• Approximately 2.3 million children under age 15 currently live with HIV. (Global AIDS Alliance)
• Every minute, one child under age 15 dies from AIDS or an AIDS-related illness. (UNICEF)

Read the AIDS Free Generation briefing. 

To learn more about Child Survival, click here.

Children and Health

• An estimated 11 million children under age five die each year from preventable or treatable diseases. In 2004, an estimated 10.5 million children died before they reached age five, most from preventable diseases. (World Health Organization)
• In 2002, vaccine-preventable diseases killed 1.2 million children - 14 percent of global deaths among children. (World Health Organization)
• Each year, more than 10 million children in low- and middle-income countries die before reaching their fifth birthday. Seven in 10 of these deaths are due to just five preventable and treatable conditions, or often a combination of them: pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, measles, and malnutrition. (World Health Organization)
• There are an estimated 150 million children with disabilities in the world, most of whom face discrimination in one form or another. (UNICEF)
• One in five deaths of children under age five in Africa is attributable to malaria. (Roll Back Malaria)
• Malaria kills a child in Africa every 30 seconds. Many children who survive malarial episodes often struggle with learning impairments or brain damage. (Roll Back Malaria)
• More than 150 million episodes of pneumonia are estimated to occur each year among children under age five in developing countries. Twenty percent of those cases are fatal. (World Health Organization)
• Pneumonia is the leading killer of children - more than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined with approximately 2 million deaths each year. (World Health Organization)
• Two hundred million children under age five are malnourished. (Global Health Council)

To learn more about child survival click here.

For more on Malaria and children’s health, click here.

Children and Nutrition

• In the developing world, 146 million children under age five - 27 percent - are underweight, the worst situation being in South Asia where nearly half (46 percent) of children under the age of five are underweight. (UNICEF)
• Every day, more than 16,000 children - one child every five seconds - dies from hunger-related causes. (Bread for the World)
• Malnutrition, or not enough essential nutrients, contributes to more than half of all child deaths in the developing world. (World Health Organization)
• Undernutrition, or insufficient caloric intake, contributes to 53 percent of all deaths among children under five years of age. (World Health Organization)

To learn more about child survival click here.

Education

• Around the world, approximately 120 million primary school-aged children are out of school, and the vast majority are girls. (UNICEF) 
• If all children received a complete primary education, an estimated 700,000 new cases of HIV can be prevented each year - seven million in a decade. (Global Campaign for Education)

For more on Basic Education, click here.

Children in Conflict

• An estimated 20 million children have been forced to flee their homes because of conflict and human rights violations.  More than 1 million have been orphaned or separated from their families. (UNICEF)
• An estimated 300,000 children - boys and girls under the age of 18 - are involved in conflicts around the world. (Human Rights Watch)

To learn more on children in conflict, click here.

Child Abuse

• An estimated 40 million children under the age of 15 suffer from abuse and neglect, and require health and social care. (World Health Organization)
• Millions more children are being trafficked, forced into debt bondage or other forms of slavery, and forced into prostitution and/or pornography.
  • 0.3 million in armed conflict
  • 1.2 million being trafficked
  • 1.8 million forced into prostitution/pornography (International Labor Organization)

For more information on child sexual abuse, click here.

Child Labor

• More than 352 million children - 23 percent of children aged five to 17 - were "economically active" in 2000, with half engaged in work that would likely "harm their health, safety, and moral development." (International Labor Organization)
• 73 million working children are less than 10 years old. (International Labor Organization)
• Each year, 22,000 children die in work-related accidents. (International Labor Organization)
• The largest number of working children age 14 and under is found in the Asia-Pacific region, with 127 million children engaged in child labor. However, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest proportion, where nearly a third of children under age 14 - 48 million - are involved in child labor. (International Labor Organization)

Links: 

Global Action for Children’s Platform for the World’s Children

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My Own Monsters: Designed by children to benefit children