World’s Children Threatened by War, Poverty

More than half of the world’s children are threatened by conflict, poverty or sexual discrimination, ‘Save the Children’ said in a report published recently. Entitled “Many Faces of Exclusion”, the study ranked 175 countries in terms of the threat of child labour, exclusion from education, child marriage and early pregnancy. It found that 1.2 billion children worldwide were at risk from at least one of the three main threats. “More than half the world’s children start their lives held back because they are a girl, because they are poor or because they are growing up in a war zone,” said Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the charity’s chief executive. “Governments can and must do more to give every child the best possible start in life,” she added. The report said more than one billion children live in countries hit by poverty and 240 million in countries affected by conflict and fragility.