Factbox: From marriage to murder, one in four robbed of childhood globally

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The number of children who are married, pregnant, laborers, die violently or miss out on school has fallen by almost 30% to 690 million since 2000, when nations endorsed global development goals, the charity Save the Children said on Tuesday.

Singapore, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Slovenia topped the rankings of a report examining health, education, child marriage and child labour practices in 176 countries, while South Sudan, Mali, Chad, Niger and Central African Republic scored worst.

Here are some facts on how children fare today compared to 2000:

* About one in four of the 2.3 billion children alive today under the age of 18 have been robbed of their childhoods by child marriage, early pregnancy, exclusion from education, sickness and malnutrition.

* Deaths of children under five have halved to 5.4 million from 9.8 million in 2000.

* Child homicides have fallen by 17% since 2000 to 85,000 murders of young people under the age of 20 in 2016.

* The number of stunted children fell by 49 million since 2000 to 149 million. However numbers have risen in Africa, which accounts for four in 10 children globally who are stunted due to poor nutrition and repeated infection.

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Consult the new Global Childhood Report by Save the Children