Nearly 385 million children worldwide live in extreme poverty, UNICEF and the World Bank said Monday, according to dpa. Children in Africa south of the Sahara Desert and in southern Asia, especially India, are the worst off, the report said. In 2013 an estimated 19.5 per cent of the children in developing countries lived in households that on average had to get by on only 1.90 dollars per person per day, according to the report. Adults in developing countries are affected by extreme poverty only about half as often. "Children are not only more likely to be living in extreme poverty; the effects of poverty are most damaging to children," UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said in a news release. "They are the worst off of the worst off - and the youngest children are the worst off of all because the deprivations they suffer affect the development of their bodies and their minds." Lake said it was "shocking" that half of all children in sub-Saharan Africa and one in five children in developing countries are growing up in extreme poverty. "This not only limits their futures, it drags down their societies." UNICEF evaluated data from 89 countries for the report.
