Effects of Child Poverty in Developing Nations

This post is meant to accompany slide #6 entitled "Effects of Child Poverty in Developing Nations" from my presentation that I gave to the volunteers helping me with my project. The presentation can be found in a post below. I will update this blog with detailed information about the others slides as well.

Child poverty is characterized by a severe deprivation of basic human needs. About 674 million children are living in poverty. Many things contribute to poverty such as war, disease, corruption, lack of resources and harsh environmental conditions, which are all major causes of death, leading to a higher number of single parents and orphaned children.

Using a relative measure of child poverty, an impoverished child growing up in a developing country suffers more hardship than most children living in poverty in a developed country. It is estimated that one third of all children in developing countries (about 674 million) are living in poverty, the highest rates being in the rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia

All UN member states have ratified the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, with the exception of the United States and Somalia, which aims at reducing violations to a number of rights relevant to reducing child poverty in different countries. There are still great inequalities within populations, and girls and children from rural areas more likely to suffer poor health, education and survival than boys and urban populations. Notable state attempts to tackle child poverty in the developing world, include Brazil's Bolsa Familia initiative and South Africa's Child Grant. Elsewhere, child specific social protection policies and programmes are few and the institutions to implement them are often lacking.