Thread by @FullStackMaker, We expect my niece to be born today. And as the excitement [...]

We expect my niece to be born today. And as the excitement grows I started thinking about how lucky she is to be born into this family.

I wouldn't say we're especially privileged (my family lives in Hungary, Eastern Europe) but the global picture shows otherwise.

thread

- as a start, she's born in a proper hospital by proper doctors. Maternal mortality rates are only 17 in 100.000 live births, while half of the world's countries still couldn't reach the U.N. target of max 70.
https://ourworldindata.org/maternal-mortality

- she will be born as a girl, but she will never have to worry about female genital mutilation (which affects 3 million girls/year)
https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/fgm/prevalence/en/

- she will not be forced into an arranged marriage (which represents 53.25% of all marriages)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arranged_marriage

- she will only hear about child marriage, which unfortunately affects 1/3 of girls in developing countries.
https://www.icrw.org/child-marriage-facts-and-figures/

- when she goes to school, 17% of the world's children are already working (that's a staggering 265 million).
https://ourworldindata.org/child-labor #childlabour

- she will spend 12 years in school, while there are countries where it's only 2 years on average.
https://ourworldindata.org/global-education

- she'll have access to qualified teachers, while 617 million children are unable to reach minimum proficiency in reading and maths
https://www.unicef.org/education

- my niece will never experience hunger (approx. 3.1 million children die from undernutrition each year and 66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry)
https://www.worldhunger.org/world-child-hunger-facts/ #poverty

- or poverty - two-third of the world population lives on less than 10$/day; and every tenth person on less than 1.90$.
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty #poverty

- she will hold a passport that gives her access to 163 countries visa-free
http://abouthungary.hu/news-in-brief/hungarys-passport-is-one-of-the-most-powerful-in-europe/

- she will never have to worry at the airport security checks because of her skin tone or religion

- oh and religion: she will be totally free to choose if she wants to follow any, while 70% of the world's population lives in countries restrictions on religion.
https://www.pewforum.org/2009/12/17/global-restrictions-on-religion/ #FreedomOfExpression

- when she grows up, she will build her career; while only less than half (47.7%) of all women participate in the labor force.
https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-the-workforce-global/

- she will earn 9.4% less than her male colleagues but it's still better than the OECD average (13%)
https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/gender-wage-gap.htm#indicator-chart

- she can make decisions of her own body: she will have access to safe abortion, while 42% of women of reproductive age live in the 125 countries where abortion is highly restricted.
https://www.guttmacher.org/report/abortion-worldwide-2017# #abortionrights

- she can love whoever she wants, and if she ends up loving another girl, that's fine too.
They could get into a legal de-facto relationship; while there are still 73 countries where homosexual activity is illegal (in 8 it's punishable by death)
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/lgbti-rights-around-the-world-in-2018/ #lgbtq

- she will ask for soda and sugary drinks while 1/3 of the world's population doesn't use a safely managed drinking-water service; 785 million people lack even a basic drinking-water service.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water #cleanwater

- and she will live a long, happy life for about 80.66 years; which is 27 years more than the average life expectancy in some African countries.
https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy#all-charts-preview

if these statistics are not shocking enough, there's a lot of other things to consider:
- freedom of speech
- access to public healthcare
- protection of domestic violence
- being white
- living in a democracy
- living in a place with low air-pollution
- having both parents

I am super excited about my niece to be born, and I will be the cool uncle to spoil her.
But I also want to acknowledge the privilege that she'll borning into (and the one I have, my family has).

A privilege to a safe, comfortable life.

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