- In the world today there are 143 million children who have lost one or both parents.
- 87.6 million orphans live in Asia.
- 43.4 million orphans live in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- 12.4 million orphans live in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- Every year, 12 million children become orphans.
- Approximately 15 million children have been orphaned by AIDS worldwide.
- Every 14 seconds an AIDS death leaves another child orphaned.
- It has been forecast that the number of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS will reach 20 million by the year 2010.
- According to UNICEF, less than 10 percent of AIDS orphans are receiving any type of support.
- In some African countries, more than 15 percent of all children are orphans, most of them AIDS orphans.
- According to the United Nations Population Division, 260,000 children are adopted annually worldwide, with approximately half of these adoptions taking place in the U.S. 220,000 of these are domestic adoptions.
- The annual number of international adoptions completed by U.S. families has been declining for four years, and 2009 adoptions are forecast to total only 12,000, or approximately 10,000 fewer than were completed in 2004.
- 510,000 children are in the U.S. foster care system
- Approximately 130,000 children in the U.S. foster care system were waiting to be adopted in 2008.
- According to the Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption, 40 percent of American adults have considered adoption; if just one in 500 of these adults adopted, every waiting child in the foster care system would have a permanent family.
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