One in four children in the Balearics at risk of poverty

COVID-19 IMPACT: The Balearic Infancy and Adolescence Office director warned the pandemic could further increase the child poverty rate. CREDIT: Govern de les Illes Balears Noticias

AS many as one in four children in the Balearic Islands were at risk of poverty even before the Covid-19 crisis, according to a newly released report.
The OBIA Balearic Infancy and Adolescence Office director Serafin Carbello revealed this week that the figures from 2019 put the archipelago as having a child poverty rate of between 22 and 25 per cent.
He warned it is “the most serious problem” for infancy and adolescence, and expressed concerns that the impact of the pandemic on Balearic families could push the child poverty rate up even higher.
Carbello also reported that extreme poverty on the islands had increased last year. He linked the rise to the Balearics social structure and to job insecurity.
The OBIA report concludes that the instruments created for dealing with child poverty “appear to be insufficient”, despite administrations’ “commendable efforts.”
He particularly highlighted the issue of housing and municipal services.

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Cathy Elelman

Cathy Elelman is the local writer for the Costa de Almeria edition of the Euro Weekly News.

Based in Mojacar for the last 21 years, Cathy is very much part of the local community and is always well and truly up on all the latest news and events going on in this region of Spain.

Her top goals are to do the best job she can informing the local English-speaking community, visitors to the area and the wider world about about the news in Almeria, to learn something new every day, and to embrace very new challenge this fast-changing world brings her way.

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