Tag Archive for: Refugees

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10 Facts About Refugees in 2023

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June 20th is World Refugee Day. To highlight the challenges refugees face worldwide, especially issues that affect children, we have compiled a quick fact sheet to inform people on this worldwide day of recognition.

  • There are 108.4 Million forcibly displaced people worldwide. Of those, 35 Million are classified as refugees. 43 million children are among those forcibly displaced (UNHCR)
  • There are 13.7 million child refugees and asylum-seekers worldwide as of 2022 (UNICEF)
  • The highest number of refugees come from Syria (6.8m), Ukraine (5.7m), and Afghanistan (5.7m). These 3 countries account for around half of the world’s refugees. (UNHCR)
  • The countries that host the most refugees are Turkey (3.6m), Iran (3.4m), Colombia (2.5m) Germany (2.1m), Pakistan (1.7m). Those 5 countries account for 38% of hosted refugees. 76% of refugees are hosted in low/middle income countries. Least developed countries hold around 20% of the total. (UNHCR)
  • Child marriage is pervasive among Syrian Refugees. Among 1,593 female adolescents surveyed in Lebanon, 32.56% were married before the age of 17. Common among these children was also a lack of sexual health knowledge and high rates of early childbearing. (NIH)
  • In 2021, 114k people attempted to reach Europe by sea, with 3,200 of them dying or going missing. (UNHCR) There have been more than 20,000 migrant and refugee deaths recorded in the central Mediterranean since 2014. (Reuters)
  • Over 400 migrants have already died in 2023 crossing the Mediterranean, and this is as of Apr 12, 2023 and before the catastrophe in Greece that has possibly resulted in the deaths of 600 more migrants. That makes it the most fatalities in the past six years over a three-month period according to the United Nations. (Reuters)
  • Syrian Refugees are often placed in child labor conditions, with 3/4th of Lebanon’s 130k child laborers being Syrian Refugees. (University of Texas Law)
  • There were 130,000 unaccompanied minors that entered the United States last year, many of them having been displaced. (New York Times)
  • 48% of refugee children remain out of school. Young refugees are 30% less likely to complete primary school and 50% less likely to complete secondary school. (UNHCR)
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UN reports ‘grave violations’ against children in Chad including child soldiers and rapes

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By Edith M. Lederer, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – Tue, 15 Feb, 2011 7:46 PM EST

A U.N. task force has documented “grave violations” against children in the poverty-stricken central African nation of Chad including recruitment of child soldiers, deaths and injuries, and sexual violence against girls, according to a report circulated Tuesday.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in the report to the Security Council that the level and extent of attacks in Chad in 2010 were not as high as 2009 but were still “unacceptable.”
The report, covering the period from July 2008 to December 2010, said boys and girls as young as 12 years old are still being recruited by the Chadian National Army and armed groups and warned that rape and sexual violence continue to be “a widespread phenomenon.”
Eastern Chad has suffered a spillover from the Darfur conflict in part because many rebels come from tribes that overlap the Chad and Sudan border. Some Darfur rebels have had bases in Chad, and the Chadian groups have had bases in Sudan, but cross-border fighting has been limited for about a year because the two governments have improved relations.

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