Informing humanitarians worldwide 24/7 — a service provided by UN OCHA

World

Child Protection and Education in Emergencies

Attachments

In emergencies, quality education is crucial to provide children with physical, psychosocial and cognitive protection that can be both life-sustaining and life-saving. Despite this, research shows that child protection and education are among the least funded humanitarian sectors.

How big is the issue?

The UN estimates that one billion children live in conflict-affected areas, of which 250 million are under the age of five. These children, and those affected by the growing number of natural disasters around the world, are at serious risk of violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect. Just one of these threats - child labour (defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development) affects 168 million children.

At the same time, children’s education is set back by emergencies: 58 million primary school aged children and 20 million secondary school aged children are currently out of school due to conflict. Their rates of completion, secondary enrolment and literacy, as well as mortality rates are substantially worse than in other countries. Only 79% of young people are literate in conflict-affected low-income countries, compared with 93% in other low-income countries.2