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The role of the EU in shaping children's rights

Alfonso Lara Montero, Policy Director at the European Social Network (ESN), participated at the seminar ‘Children’s rights and the global economic crisis’, which was organised by ESN member, the European Children Rights Unit of the University of Liverpool, in Southampton on 10 November.

The impact of the economic crisis

The seminar addressed the impact of the economic crisis on children and young people. Yekaterina Chzhen and Luisa Natali from the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre presented the latest Innocenti Report Card 12, which ranks countries in the EU or OECD according to the impact of the crisis on children, based on official income and employment data. According to the report, child poverty (measured in terms of household income under the poverty line or joblessness) has increased in 23 of the 41 countries analysed, while it has fallen in 18 countries since the year 2008.

In terms of youth unemployment, Agnese Vitali from the University of Southampton highlighted that young people have been particularly hit by the economic crisis. Using data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions and from the Labour Force Surveys, Ms Vitali argued that the economic crisis has had a negative impact on the prospects of young people and their transition to adulthood.

The role of the EU in reducing child poverty

The seminar also looked at the role of the EU in responding to child poverty and promoting children’s wellbeing, particularly in the wake of the global economic crisis. Agata D’Addato from Eurochild introduced the European Recommendation ‘Investing in children’, while ESN’s Alfonso Lara Montero highlighted a number of examples of how the policy proposals from the Recommendation have been implemented on the ground, particularly in regards to children’s services (based on research carried out through ESN’s project Investing in Children’s Services, Improving Outcomes).

“The economic crisis has impacted upon the landscape within which services are delivered; consequently, new ways of delivering services are needed, including freezing some universal services and delivering more targeted solutions to reach children most in need; there is also a pressing need to ensure that child poverty provisions not only account for material poverty, but also for social development, education and participation”, Mr Montero added.

About the seminar

The seminar is part of a series of events ‘European Responses to Global Children’s Rights Issues: Exchanging Knowledge and Building Capacity’ which aim to provide a platform for discussion and interdisciplinary exchange related to the role of the EU in shaping and implementing children’s rights.

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