RIGHTS: &#39A Fifth of European Children in Poverty&#39

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Jan 15 2008 (IPS) - Nearly one-fifth of children in the European Union are living in poverty, a new report has concluded.

Yet despite such widespread hardship in one of the most economically advanced parts of the world, the rights of children go largely unrecognised by the EU. Although the Union&#39s treaties, which guide all its law-making activities, contain legal clauses on the protection of animals, they lack any comparable provisions relating to children.

Written for members of the European Parliament (MEPs) by Roberta Angelilli, an Italian centre-right MEP, the report suggests that the legal situation should improve once the Treaty of Lisbon, signed by EU leaders last month, comes into effect as it would oblige the Union&#39s governments to uphold children&#39s rights. But it indicates that such an improvement will have to be consolidated by concerted action on the situation facing children both within the EU and internationally.

It recommends that EU governments should set themselves an objective of ensuring that there is no homelessness among children, that a database be set up on offences against children so that convicted paedophiles will not be able to move from their home country and work in another, and that tougher penalties be introduced for the sexual abuse of minors.

The report also highlights that 5 percent of all asylum-seekers entering the EU are children unaccompanied by adults. No child asylum-seeker should be detained, it says.

Controversially, it advocates a Union-wide ban on the wearing of Islamic headscarves, at least in primary school, "in order to anchor more firmly the right to be a child and to ensure genuine and un-enforced freedom of choice at a later stage."

And it urges the European Commission to introduce new rules allowing victims of child labour in developing countries to sue any European firms that use under-age workers.

Angelilli told the European Parliament Tuesday that children comprise some 30 percent of the EU&#39s 492 million citizens. Her aim, she added, was to "look at the affirmation of positive rights to family and health and education, to amusement, to a clean and protected environment."

Franco Frattini, the European commissioner for justice and security, said he had made children&#39s rights one of his priorities since he took office in 2004. Yet he inferred that this view is not shared by some of the Union&#39s governments.

Although a European telephone &#39hotline&#39 has been established to assist children who suffer abuse, more than half of the EU&#39s 27 countries have not introduced it a year after they had committed to do so, Frattini lamented. "This is an initiative that could have been implemented very quickly," he said.

He stated, too, that EU officials "have something on the drawing board" to tackle child labour. There should be "stringent sanctions" against businesses who exploit children, he said.

Scottish Socialist Catherine Stihler argued that the prevalence of child poverty could result in "20 percent of future adults never fulfilling their true potential."

As there was a campaign in 2005 "to make poverty in the developing world history, why not a similar campaign in the EU to make child poverty history?" she asked.

Some representatives of the EU&#39s newest – and mostly ex-communist – member states noted that child poverty is especially acute there.

"It is deplorable that almost one-fifth of children live in poverty," said Ona Juknevi-ienè, a Lithuanian Liberal. "In Lithuania, half of all adults with one child dependant live in poverty."

Estonian Socialist Katrin Saks said that the liberalisation of economies in eastern Europe had led to a greater "stratification" of their societies.

Pedro Guerreiro, a Portuguese left-wing MEP, suggested that labour reforms that restrain wages and make jobs more precarious have made it harder for parents to meet their children&#39s needs.

His Italian colleague Giusto Catania accused Italy, Belgium and France of detaining unaccompanied child migrants in "degrading conditions".

Meanwhile, MEPs have differed about the remit of the EU&#39s new Fundamental Rights Agency in Vienna. Established in March last year, the agency is still without a director and other specialist staff to fulfil its tasks.

Liberal and Green MEPs have argued that its scope should allow it to explicitly monitor the extent of homophobia in the EU, abuses of privacy, gender discrimination and the plight of Roma gypsies.

But Michael Cashman, an English Labour MEP tasked with preparing the Parliament&#39s official position on the agency, said it would be wrong to overburden it with too many responsibilities. He said that because the agency will examine discrimination based on ethnicity and race, it has already been given the power to assess issues affecting the Roma.

Last week Amnesty International complained that the agency would only be able to work on a limited range of issues under its programme for the next few years. It would have no possibility, Amnesty added, to address major human rights challenges such as those relating to the fight against terrorism.

"The EU human rights policy has effectively run out of steam and is discredited by inadequate responses to human rights violations within its borders," said Dick Oosting, director of the organisation&#39s Brussels office.