Facts About Orphans Worldwide

Orphans

• An estimated 150 million children worldwide are orphans (UNICEF).

Child Labor

• Worldwide, there are 168 million child laborers, accounting for almost 11% of children (ILO).

Education

• 263 million children and youth are out of school (UNESCO).
• An estimated 61 million primary-school-age children are out of school; 53% of them are girls (UNICEF).

Health

• There are 69 million children worldwide who suffer from malnutrition (World Bank).
• In 2017, 75% of malnourished children lived in less developed regions (WHO).
• Nearly half of all deaths in children under the age of 5 can be attributed to under-nutrition, resulting in the unnecessary loss of about 3 million young lives a year (UNICEF).
• 66 million primary-school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone (WHO).

Mortality

• In 2017, 15,000 children under the age of 5 died every day, that's equivalent to 1 child every 17 seconds (WHO).
• Leading causes of death in unde-5 year olds are birth complications, pneumonia, birth asphyxia, diarrhea and malaria. About 45% of child deaths are linked to malnutrition (WHO).
• 2.7 million children die every year in the first month of life, and a similar number are stillborn (WHO).  

Poverty

• Children represent roughly a third of the world's population but account for almost half of all people living in extreme poverty (UNICEF). 

Refugees & Migrants

• An unprecedented 68.5 million people have been forced from their homes. Among them are nearly 25.4 million refugees, over half of whom are children (UNICEF). 
• 10,000 unaccompanied migrant children are missing in Europe (Europol)

 War & Conflict

• There are over 250 million children living in countries affected by conflict (UNICEF).
• 1 in 4 of the world's children live in a conflict or disaster zone (UNICEF).
• 20 people are forced to flee from their homes every minute (UNHCR).