The Colombia Streetkids Challenge  

The statistics below are taken from a document compiled by "The peoples advocate", the official human rights organization of the Colombian government in 1998, Unicef 2006 and ICBF 2006.

Population
Total number of minors under 18 years 16,233,000, 41.5 % of the population. 6,500,000 live in situations classified as below the poverty level or 38.9%
Of these there are living in absolute poverty 17.5 % or 1137,500 boys and girls

Abused Children
Approx. 7,859,673 boys and girls are said to be abused. It is calculated that of these 850,000 are severally abused the majority between 5 and 14 years old (Colombian family welfare department)  There is no answer from the state for this problem.

Working boys and girls
1,700,000 youth between 12 and 17 and 800,00 boys and girls between 6 and 11 years are working. 80% work in the informal sectors. Close to 50% of the children working between 12 and 13 years old do not receive income. The 50% of the youth between 14 and 17 years do not receive the equivalent of half the minimum wage. 

Pregnancy in Adolescents
In 1998, more than 20% of the women under 19 years of age are pregnant or are mothers the education level of these women is low only the 30% have finished primary school abortion is the 3rd cause of maternal death and the 2nd cause of hospitalization

Deaths
12 children die daily: 5 are murdered, 3 in traffic accidents, 1 commits suicide, and 3 in other types of accidents.

Physical Abuse
In one year 9,500 cases of physical abuse are investigated and 9,300 cases of sexual abuse.

Crime
It is calculated that close to 30,000 youth are facing charges for breaking the law.

Kidnapping
Every two days a child is kidnapped

Education
Today 30 of every 100 children of preschool age attend school and only 60 of every 100 that start primary school finish there primary education.  More than 2,500,000 children work in dangerous conditions and of them only 3 attend school.  35% of the children who complete the 3rd grade are literate. Only 47% of children between 12 and 17 attend high school, of them 84% live in urban areas.  Only 30% finish 9th grade

Children in Armed Conflict
The information below comes from investigations in 1996 until1998 but because of the difficulties involved in directly talking to the children the following information is approximated.

18% of those minors that were interviewed had killed at least once
60% have seen someone killed.
78% have seen bodies mutilated 
25% had seen someone been kidnapped
13% had been kidnapped
18% has seen someone tortured
40% had fired a gun at someone at least once
28% had been injured

Sexual Abuse
The extent of this type of abuse is not exactly known: very few victims denounce sexual abuse due to the social, psychological, moral and shameful nature, of implications. The highest at risk group are boys and girls between 5 and 15 years old. 70 to 80% of the sexual abuse is committed by persons known, trusted or loved by the victim. Between 1986 and 1998 the number of boys and girls sexually exploited has increased by more than 600%. Generally these children have been victims of abuse in the home, abandoned, sexually abused, and neglected by the education system which is in capable of receiving them again.

Children Displaced Due to Violence
In the last 10 years due to the internal violence in the country 700,000 children have been displaced.