2014-10-28 12:33:00

UNICEF releases child poverty report


(Vatican Radio) A new report released on Tuesday by the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF shows  that millions of children were plunged into poverty in the world's most well off countries due to the 2008 financial crisis.

Listen to Lydia O’Kane’s report

Child poverty is a startling reality in the developed world.

That’s according to the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF.

In a report entitled “Children of the Recession” the findings show that child poverty increased in 23 out of the 41 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union.

That rise has brought the total number of children in the developed world living in poverty to an estimated 76.5 million.
 

The document, which covers the period from 2008 to 2012, pinpoints that in Ireland, Croatia, Latvia, Greece and Iceland child poverty levels rose by over 50 per cent.

Yekaterina Chzhen is a social and economic policy specialist at UNICEF.

“We estimate that overall there are 2.6 million children more who are poor in 2012 than in 2008. And overall, we have an estimated 76.5 million children who live in poverty in the world's richest countries.”

However, the report did provide room for optimism showing that in 18 countries including Australia, Chile, Finland, Norway, Poland and the Slovak Republic, child poverty actually fell by around 30 per cent.

 








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