Extremely worrying figures. It turns out that in Mexico, 52.5% of girls, boys and adolescents live in poverty: 6 out of 10 had an income below the Income Poverty Line.
This is stated in a report presented by the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy (Coneval) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).
Poverty levels in children and adolescents in Mexico
According to the document “Child and adolescent poverty in Mexico 2020”, between 2018 and 2020 sAn increase in poverty was observed for the child and adolescent population, going from 50.3% to 52.6%.
This, mainly, due to the family income crisis as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. And worse, extreme poverty in this population group went from 8.7% to 10.6%.
54.3% of children between 0 and 5 years old are in a situation of poverty. In children from 6 to 11 years it is 52.8% and in adolescents from 51%. If we talk about children and adolescents who speak an indigenous language, 9 out of 10 were in a situation of poverty.
El Coneval explains that the most pronounced social deprivation was access to social security: in 2020, 58% of minors did not have access.
What are the recommendations? To begin with, recommends Coneval and Unicef, it is necessary to expand the coverage of social protection programs to cover all age ranges, especially children.
In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic left us a lesson: social protection programs need to be strengthened so that the most vulnerable households can be better protected in the face of future crises.
