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AFP. 29 November 2001. Millions of children in CIS, Central, Eastern Europe in poverty: UNICEF. GENEVA -- Nearly 18 million youngsters live in poverty in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) 10 years after the shift from communist to market-led economies, a UN report said on Thursday. Rising numbers of children are ending up being cared for in institutions as families struggle to cope, according to the report by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) entitled 'A Decade of Transition'. [N.B.] It said that around 1.5 million children were in public care at the end of the 1990s, or 150,000 more than at the start of the decade, adding that the sharpest increase had occurred in the Baltic states. As real incomes have fallen over the last decade, the number of children in poor families has sharply increased. At the end of the 1990s nearly 18 million children of up to 17 years of age were living on less than 2.15 dollars a day. Just under 60 million children and young people in the region were living on less than 4.30 dollars a day, it added. In addition, HIV/AIDS cases are rising, especially in Russia and Ukraine, and tuberculosis has returned to the region with 50 percent increases registered in poorer countries. In many parts of the region, family allowances were markedly cut in the 1990s and the UNICEF report calls for a sustained effort to address child poverty, including the support of family incomes via tax and benefit systems and economic policy. It also calls for regular and independent reporting on the quality of institutional care, while insisting that support services need to be beefed up and family-based care solutions encouraged. A stronger focus is also needed on preventative health care, health education and public health programmes, while it notes that public investment in education in several countries is currently low. [In short: Bring back socialism.] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
