UNICEF: 150 Million Extra Children in Poverty Due to Corona Pandemic

The corona pandemic has left an additional 150 million children worldwide living in poverty, child welfare organizations UNICEF and Save the Children say in response to the research.

 

Since the start of the global epidemic, the number of children living in deprivation in Second and Third World countries has increased by 15 percent to 1.2 billion.

Besides, according to the UNICEF and Save the Children report, the living conditions of the world’s most impoverished children have deteriorated and the situation will worsen worldwide in the coming months.

The analysis was conducted based on data from more than 70 countries on lack of education, medicine, housing, food, water and sanitation.

“Families on the brink of escaping poverty have been pushed back into it, while others are living in hardships they have never experienced before,” said UNICEF Director Henrietta Fore. “Most worryingly, we are closer to the beginning of the crisis than to the end.”

The organizations are calling on governments to rapidly expand social safety nets, access to health care and distance education opportunities.

“Children who lack education are more likely to be forced into child labour or child marriage, trapped in a spiral of poverty that will continue for years to come,” said Inger Ashing, president of Save the Children.

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