Orphans and Vulnerable 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 Asia is home to the largest number of orphaned children — approximately 60 million.³ The 8 million orphaned or abandoned children living in state-run institutions are at risk for a variety of negative emotional, mental and physical consequences.⁴ Through the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, researchers found that orphans placed in institutional care had low speech, language and social capabilities, and developed attachment disorders.⁵ Additionally, studies of nearly 4,000 children in 19 countries found that children raised in orphanages had lower IQs than children raised in a home⁶ and often had a lack of emotional control.⁷