Children’s rights organizations: “Failure to combat child poverty costs us billions”

adminn

11 months ago

Children’s rights organizations are urgently calling on the government to introduce a National Action Plan to implement the European Child Guarantee

Vienna (OTS) – The government has been delinquent on the National Action Plan to Combat Child Poverty for almost two years. Austria is required by the EU Commission to submit an action plan.

Advocacy groups and child rights organizations are once again calling on the government to comply: “Failure to combat child poverty is costing us billions, as a recently published OECD study shows. The long-term consequences of child poverty cause society an annual loss of 17.2 billion euros. And the burden on children and their families cannot even be measured in monetary terms. There is no justification for child poverty,” said the signatory organizations. The federal government must finally take sustainable measures to eliminate child poverty in Austria.

Austria should have presented a catalog of measures to reduce child poverty as early as March 2022 as part of the “European Child Guarantee”.

In the coalition agreement, the government also set out to halve poverty in Austria. Too little has happened here so far. A multi-stakeholder dialogue on the action plan took place two years ago, but there has been silence since then. This means that Austria is the inglorious bottom of the EU: All other countries have already disclosed their measures. “Why is the federal government not presenting measures to implement the European Child Guarantee two years after the stakeholder process? “After all, it’s about a good future for all children in Austria,” said the signatories.

Urgent need for action

More than 350,000 children and young people still live in Austria, at risk of poverty and exclusion. Child poverty in Austria has been persistently at a high level for years. The wave of inflation has further exacerbated the situation. The situation is particularly dramatic for single parents and their children. There was an increase in the risk of poverty and exclusion by five percent from 2021 to 2022.

The interest groups and children’s rights organizations are therefore now emphatically calling for the National Action Plan to implement the European Child Guarantee. “We need reforms for the future of children and an end to child poverty. The European Child Guarantee provides important starting points in the areas of education, housing and meals in educational institutions, which Austria must finally implement“, the organizations concluded.

Signatories:

Vienna Chamber of Labor

Federal youth representation

Caritas Austria

Diakonie Austria

Austrian Catholic youth group

Child and Youth Ombudsman Vienna

Children’s Rights Network Austria

Austrian League for Child and Adolescent Health (Children’s League)

Austrian platform for single parents

SOS Children’s Villages

Volkshilfe Austria