Brussels, 25/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - During the conference on child poverty in Europe, held on 23 and 24 January in Brussels with the assistance of the European Commission, the European Children's Network (Euronet) presented alarming figures in a report entitled "Children included: developing a coherent approach to combat poverty and social exclusion of children in Europe".
According to the report, nearly 17 million children, that is one person under the age of 18 out of five, are affected by poverty within the EU, and this phenomenon is on the increase. The EU countries where the rate of child poverty is the highest are: 1) United Kingdom (25% of the under 18s live in households with low or very low income), 2) Ireland (24%), 3) Spain (23.5%), and 4) Italy (23%). Germany (with 20%) and France (18.5%) are just below the European average. The Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Finland and Norway), with a child poverty rate of 5%, are the least exposed to this phenomenon.
Seeking to prevent this kind of poverty from developing further, Euronet puts forward several recommendations in its report. It believes tackling the issue of poverty and exclusion of children should be political priorities of the EU countries and that childhood policy should be tackled not only from the family policy angle but also by involving the children themselves as far as possible.