What Are the Major Factors Of Poverty?

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Statistics show that almost 1.5 billion people in 91 countries currently live in poverty-  according to UNICEF, 22,000 of them are children who die each day due to poverty. Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. About 10.6 million children died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5. And around 1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and   adequate sanitation. These aren't just numbers, they are real facts that indicate society is on the edge of corruption. While we all may think that providing food and clean water is the    answer to ending poverty it is certainly not. If what we want is to avert poverty from ever happening, we need to educate families who are experiencing the unimaginable effects of poverty. Not only do they need to be educated but also the leaders and government that make up those particular countries. Leaders need to know how they can contribute and help to decline the crisis that occur in their countries. They also need to be given the resources needed to alleviate their country.

                                                             Lack of Education
   
So what are the factors of poverty you ask. While a lack of food and shelter might be thought to be the main factors of poverty issues like teen pregnancy, natural disasters, education, a country's lack of governing, and war are also major components that lead to poverty. When people lack education they have no access to decent jobs. According to the World Socialist Web Site, an estimated 201.8 million people were jobless in 2013 up by nearly 5 million in one year. North Africa remained the hardest- hit region, with an unemployment rate of 12.2 percent, followed by the Middle East on 10.9 percent. This is not the result of people who chose to sit around rather than work for the benefit of their families. This is simply because residents in undeveloped countries are not given the skills and knowledge they need to find jobs. Some regions of the world such as Eastern and North Africa are least likely to educate its people, among them being children. Therefore, it ranks the world's poorest countries according to their education systems. Somalia has the least functional system in the world with just 10 percent of children going to primary school, while Eritrea is the second worst.

                                                                 Teen Pregnancy

 On the topic of education, one of the reasons why some are not educated especially girls is because of teen pregnancies. This however is a global problem. Statistics from the World Health Organization shows that about 16 million girls aged 15 to 19 and some 1 million girls under 15 gave birth every year- most in low and middle income countries. In some countries, girls are forced into child marriage as soon as they reach the age of puberty. Some countries forbid pregnancies outside of marriage so girls are pressured into marriage and, once married to have a baby. Some girls do not know how to avoid getting pregnant: some countries lack in sex education. When these girls are married, they aren't able to attend schools due to the responsibility that comes in caring for the baby. This is not only an issue in other countries, but also here in the U.S. . The National Campaign reported that as of 2013, the teen birth rate was 27 births per 1,000 teen girls( age 15-19), and there were 274,641 births to teen girls. Think about how this is affecting their education. Some of these girls watch their peers graduate and end up having good jobs. Teen pregnancy can be prevented by giving girls the opportunity to be educated. While that maybe easy for girls living in the United States and most European countries, girls from other countries face many obstacles just to get a good quality education. When you educate a girl, you're educating a generation of skilled workers.

                                                          Natural Disasters

 Furthermore, natural disasters are also a factor that leads to poverty. In the winter of January 12, 2010 an apocalyptic earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 hit the Caribbean country of Haiti. The earthquake was so catastrophic that 316,000 people were killed and 1 million became homeless. 1 in 5 lost their jobs because so many buildings were destroyed. 250,000 homes and 30,000 other buildings, including the President's Palace and 60 percent of the government buildings were either destroyed or badly damaged. People were squashed into shanty towns or onto the streets because their homes had been destroyed leading to poor sanitation and health. Many innocent kids became orphans after losing their parents and loved ones to the earthquake. Meanwhile, in another country, nearly 260,000 people died from the famine that hit Somalia from 2010 to 2012 as BBC reported. "Half of them were children under the age of five," says the report by the UN and the U.S. -funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network. The crisis was caused by a severe drought, worsened by conflict between rival groups fighting for power. Somali was worst hit by the extreme drought in 2011 that affected more than 13 million people across the Horn of Africa. Tens of thousands of people fled their homes in search for food.

                                     War And Lack of Government

On the other hand, many countries such as Syria are currently in turmoil. According to BBC reports, almost 200,000 Syrians have lost their lives in the escalating conflict between forces loyal to President Bashar al- Assad and those opposed to his rule. Syria's bloody internal conflict has destroyed entire neighborhoods and forced more than nine million people from their homes. Not only do the Syrian people have to put up with the civil war in the country, but they have no one to help them out of the turmoil or even bring peace to the country because the government is just as war weary as those forces fighting against Assad's regime and government. This is also the result of a lack of leadership. When you have no guidance or no one that can lead a group of people in the right path, you'll end up having people fight over power and eventually destroying a whole country, causing chaos and destruction. Destroying homes and a society leads to poverty. Like a wise man once said, "Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime."

 In conclusion, poverty is more than just hunger, its about educating or informing people, giving resources to those who have no access to it and also uniting others so that things like wars and conflicts don't come about. As they cause nothing but eradication and uncertainty of hope to future generations. Now one deserves to live in such society. We the people need to sit down and have a global discussion on poverty, it can be stopped! While we may think that just donating money for countries facing such problem may be a solution, we need to sit down and discuss how it can actually be prevented. The first step to ending poverty is integration or unification of different nations. Then, we can converse about what we can do to help those who are in need of our assistance.













BBC News

 Somalia Femine 'killed 260,000 people'

 BBC News Africa

 2013/05/02

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-22380352

BBC News

 Syria: The story of conflict

 BBC News Middle East

 2014/12/04

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26116868

Handy Geography

 Earthquake Case Study(Haiti-Poor)

https://handygeography.wordpress.com/gcse/the-restless-earth-revision-materials/earthquake-case-
study-haiti-poor/

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

 National Snapshot & National Details

 The National Story

 2014

http://thenationalcampaign.org/data/landing

Jessica, Shepherd

 70 Million children get no education, says report

 The Guardian

 2010/09/10

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/sep/20/70m-get-no-education

Mike, Head

 Global unemployment rises above 200 million

 World Socialist Web Site

 2014/01/21

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/01/21/jobs-j21.html

United Nations Development Programme

 Multidimensional Poverty Index

 Human Development Report

 2014

http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/multidimensional-poverty-index-mpi

Poverty At Large: A Dark Spot In Humanity

 Causes of Poverty

http://povertyhci.weebly.com/causes-of-poverty.html

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