Brussels (EFE).– A year 2021 closed with more than 200,000 children living at risk of poverty in European Union (EU) countriescompared to the figures for the previous year 2020, according to a report prepared by Save the Children with the latest figures available to this organization.
In total, in 2021, more than 19.6 million children lived in this situationwhich is equal to one in four minors in the EU as a whole.
In the case of Spain, the ratio is worsening and one out of three minors lives in a situation of child poverty, according to the authors of the report published in Brussels. Spain represented the second highest rate of the 14 EU countries analyzed in the study, with 33.4% of children, a figure surpassed only by Romania at 41.5%.
In a statement, Save the Children linked the increase in the number of children at risk of poverty, which the entity described as “alarming”, with in the context of inflation after the war in Ukraine and according to consequences of the covid-19 pandemic and climate crisis.
An organization for children’s rights warned about it The families that suffered the most during the pandemic are the ones that suffer the most again with the current increase in the cost of livingand condemned that there are families who are forced to skip and ration meals due to the increase in the price of basic foodstuffs.
The Save the Children study also confirms that child poverty it affects migrant children or children with irregular status moreand that its influence is also greater among people with disabilities or living in single-parent families.
Despite this, the entity has “hope” to change the current figures, i encourages Member States to quickly implement the European Child Guaranteethe first comprehensive EU program to reduce child poverty at the community level.
The strategy provides guidelines to states for reducing inequality in childhood through, for example, providing free education during early childhoodfree access to healthcare or a guarantee of at least one free healthy meal at school.
He General Director of Save the Children Spain, Andrés Condestated in a statement that the challenge for Spain is for the autonomous communities and municipalities to create their own action plans for the Child Guarantee, the program by which the EU aims to reduce child poverty by 2030.
Source: Panama America
I am Jason Root, author with 24 Instant News. I specialize in the Economy section, and have been writing for this sector for the past three years. My work focuses on the latest economic developments around the world and how these developments impact businesses and people’s lives. I also write about current trends in economics, business strategies and investments.
