“CAN YOU HEAR THEM?”
Statistics relating to the plight of children around the world

The Hannah Neil World of Children Awards seek to lift up and recognize individuals who selflessly dedicate their lives to improving the plight of children around the world. What follows are some statistics, which serve as evidence of the need to encourage and reward the work of child advocates worldwide.

HEALTH/MEDICAL STATISTICS

Each year, more than 2 million children die as a result of vaccine-preventable diseases (United Nations, www.un.org).

Approximately 34,000 of the world’s children die each day from starvation and related causes (United Nations, www.un.org).

Malnutrition is often an invisible plight. In developing countries, about three quarters of the 150 million children who die from the disease show no outward sign of their vulnerability (UNICEF, www.unicef.org).

Poor sanitation makes schools unsafe places where diseases spread rapidly. About 40 percent of school-age children suffer from intestinal worms (UNICEF, www.unicef.org).

Diarrhea, which is spread easily in areas with poor sanitation, kills 2.2 million persons each year—most are children under the age of 5 (UNICEF, www.unicef.org).

WAR

In the past decade, more than 2 million children have been killed due to war. Three times as many have been seriously injured or disabled (United Nations, www.un.org).

Approximately 1 million children have been orphaned by war in the past decade. An additional 4 million have been subjected to physical mutilation (“Healing Minds As Well As Bodies,” www.UNICEF.org).

About 110 million landmines lie waiting for children, whose natural curiosity and inability to identify warning signs make them more susceptible to dangers (“Children at Both Ends of Guns,” www.UNICEF.org).

The onset of war inflates the average child death rate up to 24 times. Thousands die as the result of direct violence; millions more die from indirect consequences, including destruction of food supply, water systems, health services and sanitation (“Wars Against Children,” www.unicef.org).

EDUCATION

Today, more than 128 million children do not attend school (Save the Children, www.savethechildren.com).

Two-thirds of children not enrolled in school are female (The World Bank Group, www.worldbank.org).

Nearly 1 billion people, including 130 million children, entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names (Child Rights Information Network, www.crin.org).


POVERTY/CHILD LABOR

Many of the world’s children live in extreme poverty (Save the Children, www.savethechildren.com).

Every three seconds, poverty takes at least one child’s life, resulting in 30,000 deaths each day. (Save the Children, www.savethechildren.com).

Of the 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 who are forced to work, about half work full-time, sacrificing their opportunity to be educated (International Labor Organization, www.ilo.org).

About 50 – 60 million children ages 5 – 14 work in hazardous conditions (Child Rights Information Network, www.crin.org).


HIV/AIDS

About 2,000 children younger than age 15 are infected with HIV each day. Many are babies, who are born to infected mothers or acquire the virus through breast milk (Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, www.unaids.org).

At the end of 2001, about 580,000 children younger than 15 died from HIV/AIDS and another 2.7 million were living with the disease (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets).

More than 13.4 million children younger than 15 have been orphaned by AIDS in the past 6 years. After their parent dies, children often are forced onto the street. Older children must work to support their siblings (World Bank, www.worldbank.org).


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For more information, contact:

Denise Baker or Marty Hatfield
Lord, Sullivan & Yoder
614/888-1381
kfinan@lsy.com
mhatfield@lsy.com