As long as there are children in poor countries being forced into bonded labour, exploited by sex tourism, made to serve in armed conflict, orphaned by AIDS or living on the streets, there will be a need for World Vision's Child Rescue program.

Street children

There are around 100 million children living on the streets worldwide. Some are as young as four.

Children leave their families for many reasons: extreme poverty, violence, being orphaned or abandoned. They don’t go to school and they must fend for themselves.

These children often end up begging or working for little pay in dangerous conditions. Vulnerable to exploitation or abuse, many are coerced into the sex trade.

Child trafficking

Child trafficking is the recruitment, transport and transfer of children, through abduction, deception or force, in order to exploit them. The most common forms of exploitation are sexual (including prostitution) and cheap labour working in mines and factories.

Estimates suggest that around 1.2 million children are trafficked each year and forced into labour, armed combat or the sex industry. Many of these children come from desperately poor families. Traffickers take advantage of their situations by luring them with promises of a better life. They make huge profits by preying on their vulnerability.

In the world’s poorest countries, around 250 million children between the ages of five and 14 are working. Many of them work in the worst forms of child labour or have been trafficked.

Child labour

Around 246 million children in the world’s poorest countries are involved in active labour such as sewing clothes, stitching footballs, glueing matchboxes, weaving carpets or crushing stones. Around one in three is no older than 10.

And yet we rarely see or hear about them.

Children are forced and tricked into cheap labour every day. In the Asia Pacific region alone, there are around 127 million working children under 14. That’s 6 times the population of Australia. Most of them have no choice because their families are too poor; they are orphans or have been abandoned. These children need money to survive, however little they may be paid.

The situation is even more desperate for the millions of children trapped in the worst forms of child labour: slavery, prostitution and armed conflict.

Orphaned children

Around the world, 15 million children have been orphaned because of AIDS. Eighty percent of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa.

Often looked after by extremely poor grandparents or relatives, these children receive inadequate care. Many of them do not even get the chance to go to school, receive adequate healthcare or proper nutrition.

However, even more alarming is that many of the countries where AIDS is rife have no policies in place to provide the care these children so desperately need.

Half of all HIV infections occur among 15 to 24-year-olds, so it's essential to provide young people with the knowledge to protect themselves.

World Vision's work in helping to protect vulnerable children and rehabilitate the victims of exploitation is essential.