Children themselves help us understand what child poverty means. Young Lives is an international research project conducted by the Institute of Development Studies in the United Kingdom that is recording changes in child poverty over 15 years. Through research in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Viet Nam, the project aims to reveal the links between international and national policies and children’s day-to-day lives. The project includes a strong participatory element and has already showcased, for example, children’s writings about their experiences of poverty, education and child labour.

In Serbia and Montenegro, a country impoverished by more than a decade of strife, inter-ethnic tension and economic crisis, UNICEF has been working with the government and local non-governmental organizations on a participatory study of child poverty that has made a point of consulting children as well as their parents. The research eschews the dry traditional techniques of polls and questionnaires and involves children in discussions that are set up like games.

While younger children focus on the lack of supplies such as books, toys and playgrounds, parents emphasize monetary poverty, believing it to be the source of all other problems. The research has shown, above all, that poverty affects the fulfilment of a wide range of basic child rights, from education to health, from play to adequate living standards. As one child from Serbia and Montenegro says: “Finally someone has remembered to ask how we feel about all this.”