The number of children without access to social protection has been growing every year and between 2016 and 2020 it increased by 50 million.
The data is from a report published this Wednesday by the International Labor Organization and UNICEF. The director of Policies for Children of UNCEF in Portugal, Francisca Magano, explains that, without access to social protection, these children “are even more vulnerable to poverty, disease and malnutrition.”
“In families that have less social support, the likelihood of children going to or staying in school decreases, therefore increasing the risk of child marriage and child labor for these 50 million children,” he explains to TSF.
The biggest problems are in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa, where the difficulties are greatest. In Europe, there has been an effort.
“During the pandemic, there was a set of support measures approved. What we also noticed is that the pandemic increased the number of children in multidimensional poverty, it increased by 15%. So, what were the measures taken, that is, in European countries, during this period it should be continued and even reinforced”, considers Francisca Magano, referring to the need to ensure “universal access and universal benefits, look at the entire trajectory, for all childhood and adolescence, and guarantee not only measures that are permanent, but that can accompany the development of the child”.
Here we are talking about nurseries and Portugal is an example in this parameter: “It has made a commitment to guarantee access to free and quality early childhood responses. In fact, they are measures that we consider necessary in all countries and here is no exception. This report demonstrates this, although we recognize that there are much more complex realities and where progress has been less significant”.
For the director of Unicef in Portugal, “in general, in any region of the world, it is necessary to continue investing in social benefits for children” and, above all, in protection systems based on human rights.
“Respond to the particular needs of groups of children, for example, refugees. In the case of access to mental health, to medical care. These are groups of children who may be more vulnerable at a certain time, so they need access to services,” she concludes.
The report of the World Labor Organization and UNICEF has the name “More than a thousand thousand reasons: the urgent need to ensure social protection for children” and indicates that the number of children in this situation is now 1.46 thousand million in all the world.
Source: TSF
