UNICEF DATA - Child Statistics

COVID-19 and children data hub

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are far-reaching and will be borne by children for years to come. For millions, learning has come to a halt and essential health services like the delivery of life-saving vaccines are out of reach. Others have been plunged into a lifelong cycle of poverty. Using the latest available data, this hub highlights the impacts of the pandemic on children’s poverty, education, health, nutrition and more.

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Publications

The State of the World’s Children 2021 - Promoting, protecting and caring for children’s mental health

For the first time in its history, The State of the World’s Children examines mental health, with a special focus on how risk and protective factors in the home, school and community shape mental health outcomes. Against a backdrop of rising awareness of mental health issues, and growing demand for action, the report argues that we now have a unique opportunity to promote good mental health for every child, protect vulnerable children and care for children facing the greatest challenges.

Publications

Towards Ending Child Marriage: Global trends and profiles of progress

This report looks at historical trends, with a focus on selected countries that have recorded significant declines in child marriage prevalence. It offers an overview of changes in the practice of child marriage together with a review of other shifts that have occurred in these countries in terms of girls’ access to education and employment opportunities, as well as economic development and poverty reduction.

We believe that consistent, credible data about children’s situations are critical to the improvement of their lives – and indispensable to realizing the rights of every child.

1 in 4

children under the age of five officially do not exist

160 million

children worldwide were in child labour in 2020

1.6 billion

children worldwide were affected by school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic

3 billion

people worldwide do not have a handwashing facility with water and soap at home

6-7 million

additional children may have suffered from wasting or acute malnutrition due to COVID-19

Latest statistics

Publications

State of the World’s Hand Hygiene

Hygiene has long-established links with public health, but the COVID-19 pandemic thrust the issue of hand hygiene into prominence like never before. Globally, around 3 in 10 people – or 2.3 billion – do not have handwashing facilities with water and soap available at home. This report argues that accelerating progress towards “adequate and equitable hygiene for all” as called for in SDG target 6.2 is a no-regrets investment that leaves the world better prepared to manage future disease outbreaks and pandemics.

Publications

Uncertain Pathways: How gender shapes the experiences of children on the move

Available data demonstrate that gender plays a pivotal role from the time the decision to leave home is made, and continues to shape experiences and vulnerabilities throughout the child’s journey and integration process at the destination. COVID-19 has added another layer of complexity to the lives of children on the move, exacerbating pre-existing insecurities in some dimensions and introducing new ones. Girls in particular are feeling many of these effects acutely, such as gender-based violence.

Publications

The climate crisis is a child rights crisis: Introducing the Children’s Climate Risk Index

The Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI) provides the first comprehensive view of children’s exposure and vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. It ranks countries based on children’s exposure to climate and environmental shocks, such as cyclones and heatwaves, as well as their vulnerability to those shocks, based on their access to essential services. This report presents a conceptual framework, a tool and an initial assessment at a global level – in order to help prioritize action for those most at risk.

Publications

Education disrupted: The second year of the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures

Schoolchildren around the world have lost an estimated 1.8 trillion hours – and counting – of in-person learning since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. Around 131 million schoolchildren in 11 countries have missed three quarters of their in-class learning from March 2020 to September 2021. Among them, 59 per cent – or nearly 77 million – have missed almost all in-person instruction time. As a result, young learners have been cut off from their education and the other vital benefits schools provide.

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