The International Labor Organization (ILO) and Unicef have recently published the report entitled “More than a billion reasons: The urgent need to build universal social protection for children.”
According to this report, the number of children who do not have access to social protection services increases every year, exposing them to the risk of poverty, hunger and discrimination, in addition to other equally serious problems.
Between 2016 and 2020, another 50 million children aged 0-15 did not receive basic social protection benefits (particularly child benefits paid in cash or through tax credits or state subsidies), leading to the total number of children under the age of 15 in this situation to 1.46 billion worldwide.
When they do not receive adequate social protection, boys and girls are more exposed to poverty, contracting diseases, many drop out of school or never attend, suffer malnutrition and are more likely to fall into networks of sexual exploitation and child labor, or are exposed to early marriage.
All of the above has to do with the problems that affect poor families throughout the world, and particularly children who are the most vulnerable sector of society.
The protection of children is one of the many functions of the State, which must be exercised through public policies focused on health, schooling, allocations that minimally guarantee access to basic food for all children, especially children. with fewer resources.
The call for attention from Unicef and the ILO should set off the alarm bells of all governments; deprived children are not simple statistics, but the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and neoliberal policies that seek to create an absent State are always imposed.
States have to guarantee social protection systems for children that last over time, be it through subsidies, structures and policies that have continuity, beyond the fiery proclamations of electoral campaigns.
It is true that the setback generated by the pandemic led to a decline in these systems in all countries, but it is time for governments to worry about children, which is to take care of building a better future for all.
The entrance Lack of protection of childhood was first published on elCaribe newspaper.
