Spain is the third country in the European Union with the highest risk of child poverty, according to Save The Children.

Spain is the third country in the European Union with the highest rate of child poverty and social exclusion, with 31.3%, only behind Romania and Bulgaria, according to Save The Children’s report Guaranteeing children’s future: how to end child poverty and social exclusion in Europe. According to the study, one in three Spanish children live below the poverty line (60% of the median national income), suffer severe material deprivation or live in households with low employment intensity.

The Government is preparing a plan against child poverty with a historic investment of more than 527 million euros.

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The document, which analyses 14 European countries, reveals that no country on the continent is free from child poverty. According to Save The Children, nearly 20 million children across Europe live in poverty or social exclusion, a figure that had been reduced in recent years but has increased again in 2020 by the pandemic of the coronavirus. The organization says that before the crisis, 18 million children, about one in four, grew up at risk of poverty or social exclusion across the EU and after COVID-19 the figure has reached 20 million, may rise further if urgent action is not taken.

The report notes that nearly 40% of children at risk of poverty in Spain come from families with jobs, which, according to the NGO, debunks the myth that employment is a guarantee of not growing up in poverty. In addition, those who grow up in single-parent or large families, of migrant origin, with disabilities, belonging to an ethnic minority and from rural or disadvantaged areas are among those most affected by poverty.

Limited access to 0-3 education

The report also shows that millions of children across Europe have no or limited access to 0-3 education and early care, “often of poor quality”, and warns that there are “millions of children” who cannot even eat one healthy meal a day.

The NGO appeals to the Government to extend the dining room grants, which only reach 11% of children in compulsory education in our country, far from the 27.4% of children who are in poverty, according to figures in the report. Moreover, the coverage is very unequal in the Spanish territory: 2% of children in the Region of Murcia have access to this scholarship, in Melilla it is 18% and in the Valencian Community and the Canary Islands, 25%.

In this sense, it warns that poverty is one of the risk factors that explain the high levels of obesity and overweight in childhood in Spain: obesity doubles in families with an income of less than 18,000 euros per year compared to those with an income of more than 30,000 euros.

Save the Children proposes the introduction of an amendment in the General State Budget Bill to increase the allocation of 100 million euros for canteen subsidies and to promote access to free school meals for all children below the poverty line in four years, making this the minimum state income threshold for accessing these subsidies.

Children without adequate housing

The organisation’s study also analyses access to adequate housing, which, it warns, can have adverse health, social and developmental consequences throughout children’s lives. In Spain there is hardly any social housing, being the percentage of the total park “one of the lowest in Europe,” he says. In addition, he adds that “deprivation of housing, living in inadequate and overcrowded conditions or the risk of eviction is the daily reality of most children facing poverty in Europe”.

Save the Children sees the development of the Child Guarantee Action Plan in Spain as an important opportunity to tackle child poverty and calls on the Government to take a holistic approach to tackling social inequalities, including investing in redesigning the Spanish tax system to work in favour of families with children in poverty.

It also calls for an increase in direct economic aid to children and families, since, according to the report, at present, aid for child rearing is only available to children in poverty.It calls for further strengthening of the Minimum Living Income so that, together with the regional minimum incomes, it can reach families living in poverty and not just those living in severe poverty.