Promoting the rights of Children with disabilities innocenti digest no

2 how many Children
with disabilities? 
It is estimated that, overall, between 500 and 650 
million people worldwide live with a significant 
impairment. According to the World Health 
Organization (WHO), around 10 per cent of the 
world’s children and young people, some 200 
million, have a sensory, intellectual or mental health 
impairment. Around 80 per cent of them live in 
developing countries.
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Statistics such as these 
demonstrate that to be born with or acquire an 
impairment is far from unusual or abnormal.
The reported incidence and prevalence of 
impairment in the population vary significantly from 
one country to another. Specialists, however, agree 
on a working approximation giving a minimum 
benchmark of 2.5 per cent of children aged 0-14 
with self-evident moderate to severe levels of 
sensory, physical and intellectual impairments. 
An additional 8 per cent can be expected to have 
learning or behavioural difficulties, or both. 
These estimates were found to be useful in the 
detailed analysis of statistics on incidence and 
prevalence of childhood disability in the UNICEF 
study on 
Children and Disability in Transition 
in CEE/CIS and Baltic States
.
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They are based on 
research and data gathered over years in countries 
with the highest human development rankings.
© UNICEF/HQ01-0216/Roger LeMoyne

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Innocenti Digest No. 13
Promoting the Rights of Children with Disabilities
The minimum benchmark was found particularly 
helpful in comparing official country rates to this 
standard since data, if available, are often not com-
parable between countries. Countries frequently 
use different classifications, definitions and thresh-
olds between categories of ’disabled’ and ’non-dis-
abled’, with the result that a child who is classified 
as, for example, having a mild impairment according 
to one system might be regarded as not being disa-
bled at all under another. 
Because of the high degree of stigma associated 
with disability in certain countries, parents and other 
family members may be reluctant to report that 
their child has a disability. Often these children have 
not even had their birth registered, with the result 
that they are not known to health, social services 
or schools. In countries where literacy rates are low 
and children frequently receive no formal schooling, 
some learning disabilities (such as dyslexia) may 
never be identified. In countries where diagnosis 
is more advanced and the likelihood of survival 
is greater or where state benefits are available to 
support persons with disabilities, there is a greater 
incentive to register a child’s disability, thus contrib-
uting to a higher recorded prevalence of disability.
The issue of identification is also linked to age 
group: it is not always easy to identify an impair-
ment in a very young child (a child under three years 
old, for example), and many impairments only be-
come evident when a child starts attending school. 
Some children – especially in developing countries 
– will also acquire impairments through accidents 
and illness, or in conditions of civil disturbance and 
armed conflict. 
With regard to data collection, consistent and ac-
curate information on children with disabilities 
helps to make an ’invisible’ population ’visible’ by 
demonstrating the extent and, indeed, the normality 
of disability. For example, in Gambia, following the 
publication of the National Disability Survey of 1998, 
recognition of the rights of persons with disabilities 
increased. The survey, administered to more than 
30,000 households by a task force that included 
persons with disabilities, was conducted to identify 
the kinds of disabilities affecting children and their 
geographical distribution. The aim was to facilitate 
provision of services to children with disabilities.
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Data on the types of impairment and the numbers 
of children affected can inform service delivery 
and improve the provision of the appropriate aids 
and appliances. It also enables the monitoring of 
equality of opportunity and progress towards the 
achievement of economic, social, political and 
cultural rights. The most useful statistics are those 
disaggregated by gender, age, ethnic origin and 
urban/rural residence. It is important that figures 
are further disaggregated in relation to the extent 
of impairment, the numbers of children with 
Box 2.1 Changing levels of disability in CEE/CIS 
and the Baltic States
Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, many 
states in the CEE/CIS and Baltic region have 
registered dramatic changes in the recorded 
number of children with disabilities. The total 
number of children recognized as disabled in of-
ficial data across the region tripled, from around 
500,000 at the onset of transition to 1.5 million 
in 2002. In Estonia, for example, the number of 
children aged up to 15 with disabilities who were 
registered more than doubled from 1,737 in 1989 
to 4,722 in 2001, while in Ukraine the number of 
children aged up to 17 with disabilities rose from 
93,156 in 1992 to 153,453 in 2001.
i
In Uzbekistan, 
according to official statistics, there were 33,280 
children registered as having an impairment in 
1992, while by 1999 this number had increased 
to 123,750.
These official data do not reflect the situation 
fully. There are additional numbers of children 
with disabilities, especially in rural areas, who 
have never been officially registered and who 
are effectively hidden because of the stigma at-
tached to their condition.
A detailed discussion of the background to and 
possible reasons for these dramatic increases 
can be found in the UNICEF report 
Children and 
Disability in Transition in CEE/CIS and Baltic 
States
.
ii
The report attributes these changes to 
a combination of improved identification and 
reporting techniques, and in some cases, the 
incentive of improved cash benefits for children 
with disabilities living in the community. 
Sources:
i
 Figures provided from UNICEF Innocenti Research 
Centre, MONEE database. These data were used in 
support of the report ’Children and Disability in Transi-
tion in CEE/CIS and Baltic States’, Innocenti Insight, 
UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Florence, 2005. 
ii
 Ibid.
disabilities living at home or placed in institutions, 
and the number enrolled in regular education or 
special education systems or receiving benefits. 
Although accurate and representative data on 
disability are lacking in many parts of the world, 
international efforts are underway to improve the 
quality and availability of data. In 2005 the United 
Nations Statistics Division initiated the systematic 
and regular collection of basic statistics on human 
functioning and disability by introducing a disability 
statistics questionnaire to the existing data 
collection system.
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Promoting the Rights of Children with Disabilities
Innocenti Digest No. 13