Worldwide Orphan Crisis

  • Every fifteen seconds, another child becomes an AIDS orphan in Africa
  • Every day, 5,760 more children become orphans
  • Every year 2,102,400 more children become orphans (in Africa alone)
  • 143,000,000 orphans in the world today spend an average of 10 years in an orphanage or foster home
  • Approximately 250,000 children are adopted annually, but…
  • Every year 14,050,000 children still grow up as orphans and age out of the system
  • Every day 38,493 children age out
  • Every 2.2 seconds, another orphan child ages out with no family to belong to and no place to call home
  • In Ukraine and Russia 10%-15% of children who age out of an orphanage commit suicide before age 18.
  • 60% of the girls are lured into prostitution. 70% of the boys become hardened criminals.

Many of these children accept job offers that ultimately result in their being sold as slaves. Millions of girls are sex slaves today, simply because they were unfortunate enough to grow up as orphans. Reliable statistics are difficult to find, even the sources often list only estimates, and street children are rarely included. 

But even if these figures are exaggerated by double, it is still an unacceptable tragedy that over a million children would still become orphans every year, and every year 7 million children would still grow to adulthood as orphans with no one to belong to and no place to call home.

Business is the perfect avenue to provide for the needs of vulnerable children around the world. As stated above, there are 143,000,000 orphans worldwide. This is a worldwide crisis and there is a desperate need to intervene.

Sources: http://www.hfgf.org/statistics.pdf

 

Orphans in South Africa