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Over 50 percent of children in Brazil live in poverty, a new study entitled “Poverty in Childhood and Adolescents,” presented Tuesday by the United Nations Children’s Fund said.
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Contrary to past studies, the recent one by Unicef says that the definition of poverty must go beyond financial status and include the accessibility to the basic needs such as education, information, water, basic sanitation, housing, and protection.
"Including deprivation as one of the faces of poverty is not common in the traditional analysis of the issue, but it is essential to highlight all the serious problems that affect the possibilities for girls and boys to develop their potential and ensure their well,” said UNICEF spokesman, Florence Bauer.
Although 32 million youths are financially impoverished, they still have access to the six basic rights, the report said. At least 49.7% of the 52 million Brazilian minors are without one of the aforementioned basic rights, while roughly 4.5 million adolescents are without three or more items. An additional 14 thousand youths are left without access to any of these basic needs.
Unicef said, “The absence of one or more of these six rights puts girls and boys in a situation of ‘multiple deprivations’ - since human rights are not divisible, have to be jointly secured."
Brazil’s most recent national study on poverty, the 2015 National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), is consequently obsolete. However, with this new information, state officials will be able to pinpoint the most vulnerable groups and regions, particularly those in the rural areas or victims of severe racism.
"Understanding each of these dimensions is essential to designing public policies capable of reversing poverty in childhood and adolescence," the international group.
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