Nearly half of people surveyed in Asia say they faced discrimination when they were children - new research from Save the Children

Approximately 45% of adults in Asia, based on Save the Children’s new report, have claimed that they were discriminated against when they were children because of their gender, ethnicity or religion, a disability or simply because of where they live. The new global survey was conducted in 18 countries around the world and with 18,000 people.

Within Asia, the survey was conducted in India, China, Philippines, and Indonesia.

The findings support the organisation’s latest report, which reveals that while progress has been made in reaching the world’s poorest children, those from discriminated groups are consistently overlooked, despite being the most at risk – and the threat to their future is only getting worse.

Whether they live in a rich country or in one of the poorest, these children tend to experience a toxic combination of poverty and discrimination. Together, these two injustices add up to millions missing out on the progress we’ve made. This is completely unacceptable and unnecessary.

India for example, in the Bihar region, where scheduled castes make up 59 per cent of the poor, only six per cent of children are registered at birth, compared to 42 per cent of children in the rest of the country – preventing them from accessing vital services because they lack proof of birth.

In Laos, the average reading comprehension was 68% for Lao-speaking children and only 26% for non-Lao speaking children.

In Vietnam, ethnic minority children are more than twice more unlikely to attend secondary education compared to the national majority due to who they are and where they live. They are also 3.5 times more likely to die before the age of five compared with their Kinh peers.

In China, around one-third of children with disabilities do not complete compulsory education.

“Many countries are deliberately failing to gather data on excluded children, making it hard to paint a complete picture – yet our experience working in 120 countries worldwide tells us that discrimination is increasingly the largest threat to the poorest children today,” says Greg Duly, Regional Director for South-East and East Asia.

“At its worst, this discrimination is deadly. Of the 16,000 children, globally, still die each day from preventable causes, a disproportionate number are from these excluded groups.”

To ensure that 15 million children around the world have an equal opportunity to survive and benefit from access to healthcare, education and nutrition, regardless of who they are or where they live, Save the Children is launching a new three-year campaign – Every Last Child.

“Unless steps are taken to recognise that excluded children exist and to provide them with the services they are entitled to, it will be impossible for all children to survive and thrive – even in the wealthiest countries,” says Greg Duly.