A total of 33mn children in Bangladesh - about half of all Bangladeshi children - are living in poverty while about one in four children is deprived of at least four basic needs - food, education, health, information, shelter, water, and sanitation, according to a Unicef study released in Dhaka yesterday.
According to the study, 64% of children in Bangladesh are deprived of sanitation while 52% deprived of information, 57% deprived of nutrition, 41% deprived of shelter, 16% deprived of health and 8% deprived of education.
These finding were presented at the launch of the Unicef Study on Child Poverty and disparities in Bangladesh, in Dhaka.
According to the study, one key determinant of children poverty is the level of the mother’s education: the higher the mother’s level of education, the lower the chance for the child to be affected by deprivation. The mother’s education also has a mitigating impact on the severity of the child’s deprivation.
In Bangladesh, one out of every six children is a working child. While there are about 63mn children in the total population, the total number of working children aged 5-17 years is 7.42mn.
The children of poor family background face serious hardships in terms of childhood deprivation and vulnerability, the study said. |
