East Africa’s human rights statistics show overlapping pressures: forced displacement, risks to girls and women, unequal care burdens, and barriers to education. The figures below use the geographies defined by each source. UNHCR’s displacement data covers the East and Horn of Africa and Great Lakes region, while UNICEF’s child-marriage, female genital mutilation and education figures use its Eastern and Southern Africa grouping.
Table of contents
- Forced displacement, asylum and statelessness
- Child marriage burden and prevalence
- Female genital mutilation scale and prevalence
- Gender equality, violence and agency
- Education access, disability and crisis exposure
- How to read these statistics
Forced displacement, asylum and statelessness
UNHCR’s RB EHAGL Regional Situations Dashboard - as of Feb 2025 reported 5.6 million refugees and asylum-seekers in the East and Horn of Africa and Great Lakes region on 28 February 2025. Refugees accounted for 5.2 million people and asylum-seekers for 464,000. The same dashboard recorded 19.0 million internally displaced people. Of those internally displaced people, 14.9 million were displaced by conflict and 4.1 million by natural disasters or other causes.
The dashboard’s latest mid-year statistical count, reported on 28 February 2025, included 97,600 stateless people. This is a separate population from refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people. The dashboard listed 67,000 stateless people in Uganda, 10,500 in South Sudan and 9,800 in Kenya.
Host-country figures show how responsibility is distributed across the region:
| Country | Refugees and asylum-seekers, 28 February 2025 |
|---|---|
| Uganda | 1.83 million |
| Ethiopia | 1.075 million |
| Sudan | 838,000 |
| Kenya | 837,000 |
| South Sudan | 548,000 |
| Tanzania | 218,000 |
| Rwanda | 129,000 |
The same UNHCR dashboard reported 11.3 million internally displaced people in Sudan, 3.9 million in Somalia, 1.9 million in Ethiopia and 1.8 million in South Sudan as of 28 February 2025. Burundi had about 100,000 internally displaced people at that date. These figures describe people displaced within their own country, rather than people counted as refugees or asylum-seekers in another country. Source: UNHCR, RB EHAGL Regional Situations Dashboard.
Child marriage burden and prevalence
UNICEF’s Child Marriage in Eastern and Southern Africa: A statistical overview and reflections on ending the practice, published in June 2022, estimated that 32% of young women in the regional grouping had married or entered a union before age 18. At the prevailing rate, UNICEF projected that about 20 million more girls in the region would marry in childhood during the following decade. That is a projection based on trends reported in 2022, not a count measured in 2026.
The estimated number of girls and women who had married or entered a union before age 18 was 17.3 million in Ethiopia, 5.7 million in Tanzania, 4.7 million in Uganda and 4.2 million in Kenya. The estimate was 1.4 million in Somalia and 1.3 million in South Sudan. These are national counts from the latest available survey estimates reported by UNICEF in 2022; the underlying survey dates can differ by country.
Among women aged 20–24, the reported prevalence was 40% in Ethiopia. In Uganda, about one in three women in this age group had married or entered a union before 18. The corresponding figure was about four in ten in Somalia and about one in two in South Sudan. Because these percentages refer to women aged 20–24, they should not be read as the prevalence among all women or all girls.
Child marriage statistics measure a practice that can affect education, health, autonomy and protection from violence. The regional average and the country estimates are best read together: a percentage describes prevalence within a defined age group, while a count describes the number of affected girls and women estimated from national survey data. Source: UNICEF, Child Marriage in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Female genital mutilation scale and prevalence
UNICEF’s A Profile of Female Genital Mutilation in Eastern and Southern Africa, published in 2025, estimated that around 42 million girls and women alive in the region had undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). The estimate combines the latest available nationally representative survey estimates, whose underlying measurement years vary by country.
Ethiopia accounted for about 30 million girls and women who had undergone FGM, followed by Somalia with about 6 million, Kenya with about 3 million and Tanzania with about 2 million. The estimate was about 1 million in Eritrea and about 200,000 in Uganda. These counts are not directly interchangeable with child-marriage counts: they describe a different population and a different harmful practice.
Among girls and women aged 15–49, FGM prevalence was estimated at 99% in Somalia, 83% in Eritrea and 65% in Ethiopia. Those percentages use a specified age range and nationally representative survey estimates, so they should not be applied to younger girls, older women or the entire population without additional evidence.
The contrast between prevalence and estimated totals is important. Somalia’s 99% prevalence among girls and women aged 15–49 indicates a very high share within the measured age group, while Ethiopia’s much larger estimated count reflects the size of the affected population reported for that country. Neither statistic alone describes the full regional pattern. Source: UNICEF, A Profile of Female Genital Mutilation in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Gender equality, violence and agency
UN Women’s Country Fact Sheet: Ethiopia reports several indicators that describe gender equality, violence, unpaid work and decision-making. The fact sheet reported 44.4% of the legal-framework achievement measured for gender equality, with a focus on violence against women. The measurement is a legal-framework indicator rather than a population prevalence estimate.
In 2018, 26.5% of women aged 15–49 in Ethiopia reported physical and/or sexual intimate-partner violence in the previous 12 months. The date matters: this is a 2018 estimate and should not be presented as a current 2026 rate.
Women and girls aged 10 and older spent 19.3% of their time on unpaid care and domestic work, compared with 6.6% for men, according to the latest estimate reported on the fact sheet, accessed in 2026. The difference indicates an unequal time burden, but the figures do not by themselves identify the causes or the specific tasks involved.
Representation and agency indicators add another dimension. Women held 41.3% of seats in Ethiopia’s parliament as of February 2024. In the latest SDG indicator reported on the page, 38% of women aged 15–49 made their own informed decisions about sexual relations, contraceptive use and reproductive health care. Ethiopia’s laws and regulations guaranteeing equal access to sexual and reproductive health care, information and education scored 73% on the reported indicator. Source: UN Women, Country Fact Sheet: Ethiopia.
These measures should not be collapsed into one score. Parliamentary representation concerns seats, legal-framework achievement concerns laws and regulations, violence concerns reported experiences in a defined period, and informed decision-making concerns women aged 15–49. Each answers a different human rights question.
Education access, disability and crisis exposure
UNICEF’s Transforming education in Africa page estimated 366.5 million children and young people aged 0–24 in Eastern and Southern Africa in 2025. The same source projected that this population would reach 400 million by 2030. The 2030 figure is a projection, not a current population count.
Education access remains constrained by both exclusion and crisis. An estimated 47 million children aged 6–17 were out of school in the region in 2024. Nearly 60 million school-aged children and adolescents in 15 Eastern and Southern African countries were affected by multiple crises in 2024. The crisis figure covers 15 countries and a defined group of school-aged children and adolescents; it is not a count of every child aged 0–24 in the region.
Disability is another access consideration. UNICEF estimated that nearly 10% of children and young people aged 0–24 in the region had some form of disability in 2025. This age range differs from the 6–17 age range used for the out-of-school estimate, so the two figures should not be combined arithmetically.
Learning outcomes also show a severe regional challenge: nine in ten children aged 10 were unable to read for comprehension in the latest regional estimate reported in 2025. The estimate concerns reading comprehension at age 10, not all learners or all forms of educational attainment. Source: UNICEF, Transforming education in Africa.
How to read these statistics
The sources use overlapping but non-identical regional definitions. UNHCR’s figures refer to the East and Horn of Africa and Great Lakes region, while UNICEF’s child-marriage, FGM and education figures refer to Eastern and Southern Africa. Country figures retain the country named by the source and should not be assumed to share a single survey year.
Counts of refugees, internally displaced people, stateless people, child brides and girls and women affected by FGM represent different populations. They must not be added together. Percentages also depend on their stated populations, age ranges and reference periods. Finally, the child-marriage and population figures labeled as projections describe expected future conditions based on the source’s assumptions; they are not observed measurements.