Nearly half of Asia's 1.3 billion children live in poverty, denied basic needs, says a new report. India has largest number of poor children in Asia, with 80% of its 400 million young severely deprived, it says.
Child aid organisation, Plan, author of the report, has pledged to spend $1 billion on poverty reduction in 12 Asian countries over the next decade.
It also wants rich nations to reduce subsidies given to their own farmers and to cancel Third World debt.
The "Growing up in Asia" report states that 600 million Asian children under age of 18 lack access to food, safe drinking water, health or shelter.
Of those, 350 million were described as "absolutely poor", meaning they do not have access to two or more of a child's essential necessities.
"Asia has more than twice as many severely deprived children as sub-Saharan Africa," said Michael Diamond, Plan's Asia regional director.
"This scale of child poverty will have a serious impact on Asia's future prospects, unless it is addressed now."
Despite high growth rates in countries like India and China, millions of families were being left behind, according to report.
Among causes, it said, were pressure of rapid population growth on scarce resources, lack of access to education, health care, clean water or sanitation, caste discrimination, and weak governance and corruption.
In India, 60 percent of all children were classed as "absolutely poor", with almost half of all children under five malnourished.
Plan said India also had the highest number of working children in the world.
China, the report said, had made "great strides in poverty reduction in recent years".
Only 13 million of its 380m child population were deprived, according to Plan's report.
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