Provides facts and figures about displaced children around the world. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cares for more than 22 million of the approximately 50 million uprooted people in the world, including about 10 million children under the age of 18. The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most important legal framework for the protection of children. UNHCR findings reveal that: (1) more than 300,000 youths (including girls) – many less than 10 years old – serve as child soldiers around the world; (2) HIV/AIDS has become the greatest threat to children, especially in countries ravaged by war; (3) children account for as many as half of all asylum seekers in the industrialized world; and (4) around 40 million children each year are not registered at birth and thus are without nationality or legal name. UNHCR seeks to keep pace with the needs of this population, although it regularly receives less than requested in emergency relief funding. However, if the developed countries were to meet an agreed aid target of 0.7 percent of their gross national product, an extra $100 billion would be available to help the world’s poorest nations.
