Today's Orphans Crisis

Fact: Nearly 144 million children across the world are orphans.

Fact: Every 2 seconds, another orphan dies from malnutrition.

Fact: 87.6 million orphans live in Asia. 43.4 million orphans live in Sub-Saharan Africa. 12.4 million orphans live in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Fact: 6,000 children are orphaned by AIDS every day. That is newly orphaned child every 14 seconds.

Think about it: Vulnerable children, with few means of supporting themselves, and are often forced to work in commercial agriculture, as street vendors, in domestic service, and in the sex trade. They are much more likely to be victims of human trafficking.

Fact: Malnutrition plays a part in more than half of all child deaths worldwide. Every year, malnutrition is associated with the deaths of five million children under the age of five.

One Rice Bowls Orphanage Partner reports, "In our area, it is estimated that 90% of orphan children have become sexually active by age 12, whether by abuse, exploitation or simple lack of role models in their decimated family unit."

Think about it: How much did you spend on lunch today? Nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion, live on less than $1 per day.

Fact: 854 million people do not have enough to eat - more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union.

http://www.ricebowls.org