The Facts
Orphans
132 million children in the developing world are orphans, meaning they have lost one or both parents.[1]
15 million children have already lost their parents to HIV/AIDS; by 2010, there will be 18 million orphans from HIV/AIDS.[2]
80 percent of those children who have lost a parent to HIV/AIDS in the developing world live in sub-Saharan Africa.[3]
More than 90 percent of all orphans in sub-Saharan Africa are cared for by extended families, not orphanages.[4]
Orphans throughout the world face many challenges-malnutrition, starvation, abuse, disease, loss of family property, decreased school attendance, and death.[5]
Orphan and Vulnerable Children Issues
Health
2 million children die from pneumonia each year, making it the leading cause of death in children throughout the world, more than AIDS, Malaria, and measles combined.[6]
25,000 children under age 5 died each day from mostly preventable diseases or malnutrition
2.3 million children under age 15 are living with HIV; every day more than 1400 are newly infected, even though mother-to-child transmission is 98% to 99% preventable when anti-retroviral treatment is taken during pregnancy. [8]
Malaria kills one child in Africa every 30 seconds.[9]
1 in 5 deaths in children under age 5 in Africa are from Malaria.
9.2 million children died before reaching their 5th birthdays in 2007, mostly from preventable causes such as pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria and neonatal causes of death.[10]
Nutrition
146 million children in the developing world, 27 percent, are underweight.[11]
In South Asia, 46 percent of all children under 5 are underweight[12]
Malnutrition, a deficit of essential nutrients, contributes to more than 50 percent of all child deaths in the developing world.[1]
Undernutrition-insufficient caloric intake-contributes to 53 percent of all deaths in children 5 and under.[2]
Education
75 million primary school-aged children, primarily girls, are not in school.[3]
Approximately 700,000 new cases of HIV can be prevented each year, if all children receive a complete primary education.[4]
Children in Conflict
20 million children have been forced to flee their homes because of conflict and human rights violations; more than 1 million of these have be orphaned or separated from their families.[5]
Approximately 300,000 children-boys and girls under the age of 18-are involved in conflicts around the world.[6]
Child Abuse
40 million children under age 15 suffer from abuse and neglect and require health and social care.[7]
Millions of 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[8]
[1] The World Health Organization
[2] The World Health Organization
[3] UNFPA, http://www.unfpa.org/hiv/out-of-school.htm; UNICEF
[4] Global Campaign for Education
[5] UNICEF
[6] UNICEF, http://www.unicef.org/emerg/files/childsoldiers.pdf
[7] UNICEF, http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_violence.html
[8] International Labor Organization, http://www.ilo.org/global/lang—en/index.htm
[1] UNICEF, State of the World’s Children 2006; http://www.unicef.org/sowc06/press/who.php
[2] UNAIDS and UNICEF
[3] UNICEF, Africa’s Orphaned and Vulnerable Generations, 2006
[4] The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria; UNICEF, Africa’s Orphaned and Vulnerable Generations 2006
[5] UNICEF
[6] The World Health Organization, http://www.who.org
[7] The World Health Organization, Global Immunization data http://www.who.int/immunization_monitoring/data/GlobalImmunizationData.pdf
[8] The World Health Organization; 10 facts on children’s health, http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/child_health2/photo_story/en/index.html
[10] UNICEF; http://www.unicef.org/media/media_45607.html
[11] UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children 2008: Child Survival; http://www.unicef.org/sowc08/
[12] UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children 2008: Child Survival; http://www.unicef.org/sowc08/
