According to a UNICEF report, published today, one in five minors live below the poverty line in France and 30,000 are homeless. An alarming finding denounced by the UN Agency.
More than three million children live below the poverty line in France, 30,000 are homeless, 9,000 live in slums and each year 140,000 drop out of school, according to a survey conducted by Unicef. Alarming figures for the UN Agency, which in a report entitled ” Every child counts. Everywhere, all the time »And published this Tuesday, pins France on its shortcomings in children’s rights.
For Michèle Barzach, president of Unicef France, “it is much better to be born and grow up in France than in a good number of other countries, as our country devotes colossal financial resources and makes considerable efforts to offer to the greatest number children a benevolent living environment. However, France is partly failing with regard to children and young people and they are the most weakened by poverty, social exclusion, discrimination but also by this very special period of adolescence, who pay the heaviest price, ”she underlines.
“A cry of alarm”
Between 2008 and 2012, 440,000 additional children plunged with their families into poverty, underlines the report which was submitted to experts of the Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva. The president of Unicef France notes that there are “increasingly marked territorial disparities, particularly glaring in ultra-marine France. “Our report is a cry of alarm which should urge the French authorities to act urgently and more efficiently for each child,” concludes Michèle Barzach. As proof, the report includes a survey by ENFAMS (children and families without personal accommodation in Ile-de-France) from the Samu Social Observatory in Paris, which indicates that nearly 40% of homeless people are families. .
Unicef also denounces the shortcomings in the education of children with disabilities in France. Thus 20,000 of them would not go to school, just like 80% of autistic people. Figures which bear witness to the authorities’ lack of investment in educational and therefore social integration.
Unworthy situations
The report particularly denounces “the unacceptable situation of unaccompanied migrant children and / or living in slums”, who are believed to be between 8,000 and 10,000 in France. The latter are indeed deprived of their fundamental rights and victims of discrimination. They “are among the most vulnerable,” insists Michèle Barzach.
For the United Nations agency, France does not apply the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In its analysis, it challenges the French government as to the progress that remains to be made and makes 36 concrete recommendations. “The global strategy for children still does not exist” in France, deplores Michèle Barzach. “There is no real public policy for children and adolescents consolidated and articulated, nor a monitoring and evaluation mechanism up to the task,” says the president. The latter underlines that “we could do much better with the same means”.
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