Children Made Up About Half of All World's Refugees in 2015

In the ten-year period between 2005 and 2015, the global number of child refugees under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) more than doubled from 4 million to over 8 million, according to research.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Children accounted for approximately half of the world's refugee population in 2015, with nearly a third of child refugees living outside their countries of origin, new research by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) revealed on Wednesday.

"Children are dramatically over-represented among the world’s refugees. Children make up less than one-third of the global population, but they constituted 51 percent of the world’s refugees in 2015. Today, nearly one-third of children living outside their countries of birth are child refugees; for adults, the proportion is less than 5 per cent," an extract from the research reads.

The report found that 45 percent of all child refugees came from Syria and Afghanistan. It also showed that as many as 17 million children displaced by conflict remained within their country's borders.

Conflicts have led to a twofold increase in the number of child refugees in the last 10 years, which puts children at risk of the worst forms of exploitation, such as abuse and illegal smuggling, the report said.

"In the ten-year period between 2005 and 2015, the global number of child refugees under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) more than doubled from 4 million to over 8 million," the report continues.

In this context, the international community should provide children with protection, education and health services, while governments need to take action to tackle issues contributing to the migrant situation, the researches concluded.