Are one in six children living through war?
More or Less: Behind the Stats
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 19 July 2025
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the midst of the television coverage of Soccer Aid, a celebrity soccer match organised by Unicef, the audience was told that “one in six children around the world are currently living through war”.
Listener Isla got in touch with More or Less to ask whether the claim was correct, so we tracked down the source to an organisation called the Peace Research Institute Oslo.
Research director Siri Aas Rustad tells us how they worked out a figure for the number of children living near to a “conflict” and the big differences between that and something most people would think of as “war”.
If you’ve seen a number you think we should look at, email the team on [email protected]
Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Nicholas Barrett Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Giles Aspen Editor: Richard Vadon
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Mariana Spring, the BBC's social media investigations correspondent. |
| 0:06.0 | In my podcast, I've been investigating what happened to the daughter of a conspiracy theorist who died having rejected chemotherapy. |
| 0:13.0 | It would mean the world to me if I could make it that she wasn't just another in the long line of people that die in this way. |
| 0:19.0 | How does this reflect the rise of health conspiracy theories on social media and beyond? |
| 0:24.8 | The new series of Mariana in Conspiracy Land. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.0 | Hello and thank you for downloading the more or less podcast. We're the program that looks |
| 0:34.5 | at the numbers in the news and in life. And I'm Lizzie McNeil. |
| 0:41.0 | Loyal listener Eila got in touch to ask about a number she heard during a broadcast of |
| 0:45.4 | Soccer Aid, a British charity event where celebrities and ex-professional players engage in |
| 0:50.7 | something that kind of resembles football to raise money for UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Agency. |
| 0:58.2 | During one of the promotional films demonstrating UNICEF's mission, |
| 1:01.7 | actor Daniel Mays described the hardships facing children |
| 1:04.9 | living in war zones around the world, |
| 1:08.0 | using this statistic to make his point. |
| 1:16.6 | One in six children around the world, using this statistic to make his point. One in six children around the world is currently living through war. One in six. |
| 1:19.6 | Now, that is a shocking figure, but is the number really that high? |
| 1:25.6 | A one in six children currently living through war? |
| 1:31.8 | Let's start with the source. |
| 1:33.8 | UNICEF told us they were quoting figures from a report by the Peace Research Institute |
| 1:38.5 | Oslo, PRIO, which studies conflict around the world. |
| 1:43.5 | Siri As Ristad is the PRIO's research director. |
| 1:47.3 | We started by asking if she recognised the claim. |
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