2023-12-06T13:05:04+00:00
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/ The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) confirmed on Wednesday that 69 million children, or more than one in five children, live in poverty in the world’s 40 richest countries, criticizing Britain and France in particular for their poor rates.
The organization’s report, which was reported by France 24 and followed by Agency, stated that this comes despite the decline in poverty rates among children during the periods between 2012 and 2014 and between 2019 and 2021 by about 8% in the 40 countries of the European Union and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Which were included in the research.
UNICEF Innocenti, the UN agency’s research department, said that this “equivalent to about six million children out of a total number of 291 million children.”
But at the end of 2021, more than 69 million children were living in poverty in those countries.
“For most children this means they may grow up without enough nutritious food, clothing, school supplies or a warm place to call home,” said Beau Victor of UNICEF Innocenti.
UNICEF’s figure is based on relative poverty, which constitutes about 60% of average national income, which is often used in developed countries to determine their poverty levels.
The report called for action to ensure the well-being of children and political will among the countries included in the survey, stressing that the wealth of a country does not automatically lift its children out of poverty.
Since 2012, the biggest setbacks have been observed in some of the wealthier countries.
In Britain, there was a 19.6% increase in the child poverty rate, or half a million additional children, while the French rate rose by 10.4%.
In the United States, the number of poor children decreased by 6.7%, but more than one in four children still lives in relative poverty.
The poverty rate in the United States in 2019-2021 was twice as high as in Denmark, where per capita income is at similar rates.
The report emphasized the relationship between child poverty and economic inequality, and highlighted the increased risk of poverty for children from single-parent families and those belonging to minorities.
In the United States, 30% of black children and 29% of Native American children live below the national poverty threshold, compared to one in ten non-Hispanic white children.
In the European Union, a child whose parents do not have an EU nationality is 2.4 times more likely to live in poverty.