In the report “The Voices of Children and Young People,” Child Helpline International (CHI) presented data collected on child use of helplines worldwide. This report provided insight into the problems children continue to face around the world which include abuse, violence, school-related problems, family and peer relationships, and mental health concerns.
“Child Helplines have been helping children learn how to take control of their own lives and resolve their problems as best they can, but few of us understand the scale of the challenges children face” explained Nenita La Rose, Executive Director of Child Helpline International.
Child Helpline International is a network of 173 child helplines that operate in a total of 142 countries to serve more than 14 million children each year. Based upon data collected from ten years of phone-calls, text messages, emails and chats, the report shows that children around the world contact helplines for the purpose of receiving support when dealing with a variety of issues.
Of the 14 million children served yearly, more than 4 million children call into helplines to report abuse or violence, whether physical, emotional or sexual. These calls accounted for one of every six contacts children made to helplines. More than 60% of those children reporting abuse or violence were girls, and the majority of these cases (58%) involved a family member.
Nearly 4 million more children called helplines to get support for family problems such as divorce, conflict between parents, changing family dynamics, and parent-child relationships. More than 1.5 million contacts came from children dealing with problems at school that included bullying, teacher abuses and academic anxiety.
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