For this Basque geographer (San Sebastián, 1963), who has been in charge of the High Commission against Child Poverty for three years, the study presented a few days ago by President Pedro Sánchez, which estimates the cost of child poverty in Spain (5.1% of the gross domestic product!) gives him sufficient arguments to convince society as a whole of the need to support the 27% of children and adolescents with severe deprivations.
"Yes it's correct. We try to show every day that it is very unfair that there are children at risk of exclusion, adolescents with less possibilities of prospering because they do not have resources, but it is insufficient, the message does not reach. It seems that citizens are immune to what these poverty figures mean, what the numbers hide. But with the data provided by this research from the University of Alcalá and Pompeu Fabra, it is possible that it is understood in a different way... and, finally, action is taken”, he points out.
It is more understood when they touch our pocket, right? The investigation calculates that each year child poverty costs each Spaniard 1,300 euros.
It is that poverty does a lot of damage to everyone, especially to those who suffer from it, but also to the country. What that study says is that if there were no inequality, Spain would have 63,000 million euros more each year (I repeat, each year). It would be richer. If we want to be patriotic, we must combat child poverty. It is not only for ethical and justice reasons, but also for economic ones. It is a matter of collective intelligence, as the study points out.
But it is the High Commissioner and the Government that must fight against inequality.
And we are doing it. We have formed an institutional alliance to resolve this inequality, but we need everyone and everyone to find a solution. The Government already has the State Action Plan for the Implementation of the European Child Guarantee (2022-2030), the main tool with which Spain implements the European Child Guarantee (GIE), a recommendation of the Council of the European Union aimed at to break the cycle of child poverty. And we have 1,600 million euros, 60% more than initially planned.
For?
The objective of the GIE is to guarantee that all children and adolescents in the European Union have access to six basic rights: education and child care, education and extracurricular activities, at least one healthy meal per school day, health care, adequate housing and healthy eating. And we are going to invest it in education in general, in education from 0 to 3 years of age in particular, for scholarships, canteens, housing, technology... In short, to get these children out of poverty, something that half of of them fail to do so by the time they reach adulthood.
Is poverty inherited?
Poverty burdens and, for example, prevents a child from having higher education that allows him to access a qualified job.
Education as a social elevator.
Don't hesitate. Many of us are what we are thanks to the universalization of education (the EGB made us more European) and the scholarship system to go to university...
The next challenge?
We have to take the leap to guarantee a minimum income in all homes, because that will make us richer as citizens and as a country. These children are not guilty of being born in a certain environment, and they have every right to develop like the rest. That should be our Spain Brand.
How is it possible that Spain has such a high level of child poverty?
It is a structural poverty that comes from decades. It has to do with a non-regularized economy in certain areas, we have population groups, such as the gypsies, who have been in a subsidiary economy, because we have citizens of other countries who take a long time to regularize their situation... And to that we can add the lack of public policies and resources.
Are you talking about the PP governments?
From 2010 to 2019, the items to combat child poverty have been frozen. In that period, the direct policies for children in the budgets amounted to about 350 million euros. From 2020 to 2021, the game is 3,000 million euros.
Do you think that the PP does not want to put an end to this situation that leaves tens of thousands of children in the ditch?
I think we have lived through a time of denial, of people who denied that there was poverty and who rejected the data that organizations such as Cáritas or the Red Cross provided and provide.
There are communities, however, with better poverty rates than the rest, almost half the average, such as Navarra and the Basque Country, rich communities...
...and who have upheld those policies. This shows us that if we maintain it over time, the results come, and they come soon.
In how much time?
In a period of three, four or five years it is seen that poverty is reduced. It's worth it. We have also seen it in Poland, which at the beginning of the century decided to curb its high poverty rates and is now much better off than Spain. So is Joe Biden (United States), and they are already beginning to see results.
