The Voices of Children and Young People

Global Overview
The 116 child helplines included in this overview reported that they answered almost 15 million contacts in 2014.
In addition, many millions of children and young people’s calls for help could not be answered because of a lack of
resources, as we have been highlighting through our global Free our Voices campaign.
Regional Distribution of Contacts
14,860,314 contacts made in 2014 18 12%
Whereas child helplines operating around the world are represented in the global data, there are differences in
the shares that individual regions contribute to the global totals. The highest numbers of answered contacts are
reported from Asia-Pacific and Europe. These two regions together account for seven in ten answered contacts at
the global level. Child helplines in Asia-Pacific reported almost 5.5 million contacts, followed by Europe with nearly
4.8 million answered contacts or about one-third share in the global total.
Figure 10:
Regional Shares in the Global Total of Contacts Answered in 2014
32%
9%
10%
37%
Child helplines in Asia-Pacific answered almost four in ten contacts by children and young people in 2014. Europe
is next, with nearly one-third of all contacts.
It should be noted, however, that the regional overviews presented later on in this publication focus on those
contacts for which a specific reason is known 19 rather than the total of all answered contacts (including silent and
test calls and other non-counselling contacts). That lens rearranges the order of regions: Europe is the region with
the highest number of contacts with known reasons, followed by Africa. Asia-Pacific is in third place in that regard. 20
18 The
total of contacts made in 2014 refers to answered telephone calls and contacts via other communication methods. Answered telephone calls include those which
lead to the child helpline providing direct assistance or active listening, as well as silent, test, abusive and other noncounselling calls.
19 Contacts
with known reasons are those answered calls and other contacts which are documented by child helplines under a specific reason for contact (peer relationships,
abuse and violence, bullying, etc.).
20 This indicates that more will have to be done to improve data collection and reporting, and CHI has placed that among its strategic priorities.
30