christina magdaleno
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (EFE) issues such as the difficulty of accessing decent housing, the precariousness of employment or the mental health problems that have arisen from the pandemic.
In an interview with EFE during his visit to the Canary Islands, the head of UNICEF described the data on child poverty in Spain as “unacceptable”, a problem “of which there has been more awareness in the last 10 or 15 years”, but which is It has been dragging on for a long time and that it continues at “surprisingly high” levels because, in his opinion, this country “still protects its childhood little and badly.”
The representative of the UN agency for children recalls that in Spain close to a third of the population lives in a situation of risk of poverty or social exclusion and 10.8% suffer from severe social or material deprivation, figures that worsen in areas such as the Canary Islands, Ceuta, Melilla or the Andalusian coast.
LOW QUALITY OF EMPLOYMENT
Thus, Vera points out that the fall in the quality of employment is one of the indicators “in which the AROPE rate is broken”, a reference on social exclusion. “There is a low quality of employment in each family, with precarious wages. We are talking about working poor who are unable to have a dignified life despite having a job », she reflects.
In his opinion, this combination of two structural factors, such as the high cost of housing and the low quality of employment, ends up having an impact that adds to the “fragility of some public policies” and, therefore, translates into poverty. and child inequality.
“In order to access better jobs, higher education or professional studies that allow them to have decent wages in the future, for these boys and girls the social elevator has broken and precariousness in employment is a key factor in that rupture,” he adds. vera.
ACCESS TO DECENT HOUSING
The director of UNICEF also affects the impact of access to housing on child poverty, a subject on which they are preparing “a very extensive study.”
His organization, he comments, has always focused on social protection through, for example, public benefits, but they consider it necessary to “influence the structural and systemic factors that are really at the origin, such as housing.”
“If the rent is inaccessible, if the housing conditions are not decent or prevent them from later being able to meet expenses for proper nutrition, schooling, digitization… that prevents them from growing and prospering,” he adds.
Thus, he regrets that many families, perhaps pushed by the spending they allocate to housing, are forced to choose between heating their home, eating meat and chicken, having a free week a year or making an unforeseen repair.
“This is a violation of the rights of children because it ends up affecting their possibilities, their opportunities, their diet, and it ends up having an impact on their health and their educational possibilities,” he highlights.
MENTAL HEALTH
For Vera, problems related to mental health in children and young people have “emerged” with the pandemic, but they were already latent.
The director of UNICEF Spain focuses on the “weakness of attention and early detection”, especially in severe situations.
Young people, he adds, “are still concerned about the pandemic, which indicates that it has affected them quite a bit at the level of mental health”, to which is also added the concern about the war in Ukraine or climate change.
SOME PROGRESS
In his opinion, there have also been some advances in the last five years, especially in the recovery from the three economic crises, with important steps such as the reduction in infant mortality in children under five years of age.
Also in the field of social protection, it abounds, with measures such as the Minimum Vital Income or the childhood supplement, although it stresses that access to this measure is still not being “as easy as it should be”.
Vera also believes that social transfers “are not being decisive in reducing child poverty” and that “clearly” the distributive factor is not having the effect “it should have.”
«Investment in childhood via direct protection, through benefits, is a problem. More scholarships could be given, which must be much larger in order to be able to pay for studies in greater equality of conditions », he insists. EFE