Learn the facts about social issues and how it affects children and their families.

•In 2007, for the first time in history, the majority of people lived in urban areas.  Throughout most of the developing world, this results in larger slum populations.

 

 

•Nearly 30% of women worldwide give birth before age 18.

 

 

•Young people ages 15-24 represent close to half of the world’s increasing number of jobless people - estimated at 192 million in 2006.   This number is expected to increase by 50 million by the end of 2009.  In many countries, youth are more than three times as likely as adults to be seeking work.  This presents an especially urgent challenge for developing countries, home to 85% of the world’s youth.

 

 

•Over one-third of all Internet users in the world live in developing countries, whose share of the world’s “Internet population” grew by nearly 50% between 2000 and 2003.

 

 

•An estimated 20 million children worldwide have been forced to flee their homes because of conflict and human rights violations.

 

Sources: 

www.unstats.un,org, www.prb.org, www.unicef.org, www.icsw.org, www.nytimes.com, www.unctad.org