Say Yes, Autumn 2005: Poverty is a Children’s Issue

Fighting poverty is a much more complex issue for low-income families than having one dollar per day per person: health, education and social security outcomes are affected when the household budget is just sufficient to fend off hunger. For UNICEF, the link between poverty and the age range of family members in Turkey is critical: families with children tend to be poorer than average -- the younger the children and the more of them, the poorer the household.

Turkey’s progress to meet the targets for the first MDG, which is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger compares well with other low to medium income countries. However, the MDG Report for Turkey shows that, as of 2003, 28.1% of the population is living with food and non-food poverty. This overall rate is only average for a medium income country such as Turkey.

The poverty line of $1 a day purchasing power parity (PPP) -- the international definition of absolute poverty -- is more appropriate to the tropics than Turkey where many endure long, harsh winters. Countries in Europe and Central Asia commonly use PPPs of $2.15 and $4.30 as the benchmarks for food poverty since cold climates require greater expenditures for heating, clothing and a higher calorific intake. The Human Development Report (HDR) 2005 shows that 24% of the Turkish population are living on less than $4.30 per day.

The straitened circumstances of almost one third of the population indicate a high level of inequality that has not decreased significantly during the past two decades. The HDR finds that, as of 2000, the richest 20% of the Turkish population had a 46.7% share of consumption whereas the poorest 20% had only 6.7%.

High levels of inequality present considerable barriers to children’s development marked by:

• low provision of health care services to mothers and children in poorer rural areas;
• education inequalities between rich and poor and also between the sexes;
• fragmented social security and health insurance systems.

Poverty in Turkey is closely linked to both the age and number of family members per household. Elderly family members have a high poverty rate but the rate for children is higher still. The chances of poverty increase markedly per household for each additional member -- usually children -- so larger households are more likely to be poorer and households with no children are rarely poor. Coupled with the finding of the Turkey Demographic and Health Survey (TDHS) 2003 that 29% of the population is under fifteen years of age, poverty is undoubtedly a significant children’s issue.

Although the high birth rate of 1.4 million per year is dropping gradually, the increasingly large population of children presents a considerable challenge to Turkey’s future development. The threat of poverty to so many of today’s children means:

• thousands of preventable childhood deaths every year;
• 1 million children of primary school age not attending school;
• over 1.6 million engaged in child labour;
• rising numbers of children living and/or working on the streets.

Low-income families often require their children to work in informal, low-paid areas of employment, which affects their education outcomes, the worst case scenario being that they enjoy no education at all. Households with children who have been withdrawn from or who have never attended school often cite lack of funds as the reason.

Media coverage of the issue does very little to stress the fact that low income families have well-defined social rights to good nutrition, health care, education and a good quality standard of living. Instead poverty is presented as an isolated problem that families must deal with on their own and the crucial impact of such widespread social exclusion on the country and its people is rarely addressed.

Poverty alleviation strategies in Turkey are largely structured as charitable interventions which tend to have a stigmatising effect on the poor. This does not improve public perception of the issue, already clouded by the skewed perspective of the media. Similarly, the official response reflects popular prejudice and continues to be hampered by an admitted reluctance to develop a culture of dependence.

Nevertheless, poverty reduction is a pressing obligation for signatory nations of the Millennium Declaration (MD) and it remains the most important challenge for Turkey -- a challenge that calls for the reorientation of attitudes as much as allocation of funds or the equitable distribution of resources.

For UNICEF, as long as poverty continues to so profoundly affect the well-being, growth and development of children, investment in children will remain the only solution.

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Indicators	Base Year value (1994)	Current (2003)	Target value (2015)
Target 1: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day
Indicator 1a: Proportion of the population living on less than $1 (PPP) per day	1.1%	0.01%	0.1%
Indicator 1b: Proportion of population living below the food and non-food poverty line	28.3%	28.1%	13.5%
Indicator 2: Poverty Gap Ratio (PGR)	1.5%	0.3%	0.1%
Indicator 3: Share of the poorest 20% of the population in national consumption	8.5%	8.8%	11%
Target 2: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people living with hunger
Indicator 4: Prevalence of underweight children under five years of age	8.3% (base year 1998)	3.9%	4.2%
Indicator 5: Proportion of the population living below the minimum level of dietary energy consumption (food poverty)	2.9%	1.3%	0.7%

Read more about childhood and poverty online in UNICEF’s The State of the World’s Children Report, 2005.

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