Child poverty, as described by UNICEF, signifies a lack of essential rights. It occurs when children face poverty and are unable to access the nutrition, clean water, housing, education, or healthcare necessary for their survival and development. Eradicating child poverty in Central Asia remains to be a continuous challenge and in the case of Turkmenistan it is one of the underexamined yet pressing issues.
The World Bank Group’s 2025 Policy Research Working Paper on Children in Monetary Poor Households highlights global, regional, and select national trends in progress against child poverty from 2014 to 2024. It provides estimates of extreme child poverty using the 2021 international poverty lines, which are a $3.00 per day threshold for extreme poverty and a moderate poverty line of $8.30 per day.
For Central Asia, grouped under the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region, the percentage of children surviving on less than $3.00 per day declined from 2.1 percent in 2014 to 1.1 percent in 2024, and for moderate poverty from 18.8% to 10.2% with the number of impoverished children decreasing from 3.6 million to 1.9 million and for moderate poverty from 31.4 million to 17.2 million. The Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan have significantly reduced child poverty rates based on the international poverty line of $8.30 per day, supported by rapid GDP growth and targeted social assistance programs.
Poor in Turkmenistan
In the context of Turkmenistan, there are no publicly available statistics or disaggregated data on the child poverty rate. However, some conclusions can be drawn from various reports by international organizations on the prevalence of child poverty in the country.
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SUPPORT OUR WORKThe 2019 UNICEF MICS wealth index findings reveal that poverty is more of a rural phenomenon, with the Dashoguz and Lebap regions having the highest concentration of poor households, at 40.2% and 39.6%, in the poorest quintile, implying that children in these areas are likely to experience multidimensional poverty. This indicator measures poverty that goes beyond a child’s monetary poverty looking at overlapping deprivations of their basic rights and needs in various aspects, such as health,nutrition, education, water, sanitation, shelter and living standards.
The 2022 cotton campaign report reveals that children aged 6-19 in Turkmenistan were employed as replacement workers especially in Dashoguz, Mary, and Turkmenabat in cotton fields, earning 40 manats, the national currency, equivalent to $2, to meet their school expenses.
Moreover, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) found that 8 percent of poorer women with poorer education in Turkmenistan had early childbearing, a factor that children born to adolescent mothers are likely to be exposed to higher risks of poverty and deprivation. There are 22 pregnancies per 1000 girls aged 15-19 in Turkmenistan (UNICEF MICS).
Additional comprehensive review of publicly available data and information on child poverty in Turkmenistan has been provided by Progres Foundation, which observes that worrying signs of declining efforts to tackle child deprivation in Turkmenistan remain a continuing challenge. Due to lack of data and information, it is impossible to measure and evaluate the government’s social protection policies and programs, if there are any, aimed at preventing and reducing economic and social vulnerabilities to poverty and deprivation in Turkmenistan.
