Children

There are an estimated 153 million children around the world who have lost one or both parents.¹ Millions more children have been abandoned or displaced, with exact figures unknown. Over 5,700 children are orphaned daily, and more than 8 million orphaned children live in institutional care rather than with a family or in a foster home.² In the United States alone, nearly half a million — 437,465 — children were in the foster care system in 2017. In that same year, 250,248 children left the foster care system, and 273,539 entered the system. Of those children, 117,794 were awaiting adoption.³ According to UNICEF, 6 in every 10 children worldwide is subjected to physical punishment by their caregiver on a regular basis, totalling almost one billion children from ages 2 to 14.⁴ Twenty five percent of adults report they were physically abused as children, and an estimated 41,000 children under the age of 15 die as victims of a homicide each year. Approximately 90 percent of these child homicide victims are from middle or low income nations.⁵ An estimated 22,000 child laborers are killed in industries such as mining, construction, manufacturing, prostitution and agriculture each year.⁶ Along with immediate physical dangers in exposure to toxins and dangerous machinery, child laborers also face long-term health risks like cancer, infertility and chronic pain,⁷ while also being less likely to attend school or have access to proper nutrition.⁸ Each year, 12 million girls under the age of 18 become married. Today, more than 650 million women and 150 million men are currently living with the consequences of a marriage that took place when they were children.⁹ Child marriages pose threats to children’s health, education and vocation, creating issues during pregnancy and childbirth and rendering the girls vulnerable to domestic abuse.¹⁰ While the majority of nations have laws in place to prevent the marriage of children, 93 countries allow girls under the age of 18 to marry with parental consent.¹¹