Post by george152Post by JohnOPost by Rich80105https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/17/unicef-charities-urge-new-zealand-act-on-child-poverty
". . .The Unicef country executive director was quoted as saying New
Zealanders empathy had hardened towards its most vulnerable citizens,
and child poverty was becoming normalised in the island nation of
4.5 million. . . ."
Unicef will say that about any country - it's their raison d'être.
Too bad for you, Dickbot, and the moaners at that lefty rag The Guardian, that Unicef's own world poverty league table shows NZ doing rather better than the likes of other 1st world countries such as United Kingdom, Canada, Japan and the USA.
https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc10_eng.pdf
Any-one know why the dick is so keen on disparaging New Zealand ?
They want child poverty go to India or Pakistan...
And to use any part of the UN as a source really ????????
Intersting that NZ was not able to be included in their first table
due to lack of data. Whether it is related or not I do notknow, but it
is certainly consistent with the government policy of not collecting
(or stopping collecting) data for anything that may be embarassing.
The report also says:
"Slipping down the agenda In the wake of statistics following the
post-2008 economic crises, the child poverty rate has rarely surfaced.
In a downturn, says Sharon Goldfeld, National Director of the
Australian Early Development Index, the first thing that happens is
that children drop off the policy agenda. Yet it is arguable that the
child poverty rate is one of the most important of all indicators of a
societys health and well-being. For the here and now, it is a measure
of what is happening to some of societys most vulnerable members. For
the years to come, it is a pointer to the well-being and cohesion of
society as a whole.
Previous reports in this series have presented the evidence for the
close association between child poverty and a long list of individual
and social risks from impaired cognitive development to increased
behavioural difficulties, from poorer physical health to
underachievement in school, from lowered skills and aspirations to
higher risks of welfare dependency, from the greater likelihood of
teenage pregnancy to the increased probability of drug and alcohol
abuse. That there are many exceptions many children who grow up in
economically poor families who do not fall into any of these
categories does not alter the fact that poverty in childhood is
closely and consistently associated with measurable disadvantage both
for individuals and for the societies in which they live.
A commitment to protecting children from poverty is therefore more
than a slogan or a routine inclusion in a political manifesto; it is
the hallmark of a civilized society"
When the focus of the NZ government is on capital profits for
supporters and corporate profits - including profits for foreign
banks, and multinationals who pay little NZ tax, it is not surprising
that New Zealand's fall on the measure of child poverty is of
sufficient concern to merit publicity overseas.