UNICEF: 1.5 million children miss a meal each day in Argentina

Some 1.5 million children in Argentina miss at least one meal every day, with one million of those going to bed without supper, according to new data published by UNICEF.

The UN children’s agency’s eighth household survey of children and adolescents, published this week, also revealed that of the adults living in those dwellings, 4.5 million people miss at least one meal as a consequence of the economic difficulties they face.

According to UNICEF, these adults do not eat all meals because they often “give priority to food for their children.”

The finding shines a light on Argentina’s ongoing economic crisis, with falling incomes, inflation running at more than 200 percent per annum and the economy set to enter recession.

“Price increases and economic stagnation for over a decade have impacted the capacity to generate income for millions of households with children,” UNICEF stated in its report.

The organisation also detailed that “10 million children in Argentina eat less meat and dairy products in comparison with last year.” As a result, it highlighted that “almost half the households with children do not suffice to cover the basic expenses of food, health and education.”

For UNICEF, poverty “especially affects people living in homes with less access to education, households with single mothers and situated in low-income neighbourhoods.” 

For that reason, the children’s agency called for “a combination of policies and the protection of the budget funds allocated to children permitting the maintenance and improvement of the schemes to protect the incomes destined for the most vulnerable families.”

The UN agency seeks to contribute to its programmes in the country, from nutritional support for vulnerable people to the development of key instruments such as monitoring the national budget allocated to infancy, among other initiatives.

According to the latest figures published by Argentina’s INDEC national statistics bureau, poverty in Argentina reached 41.7 percent of the population in the second half of 2023, affecting 19.5 million people, with extreme poverty affecting 11.9 percent or 5.6 million people. 

Most private studies, however, estimate that today more than half the population lives in poverty.

INDEC’s next report giving the statistics for the first half of 2024 will be made known on September 26.

– TIMES