With nearly one in five children suffering from food insecurity, the UK has some of the highest levels of hunger and deprivation among the world’s richest nations, a new Unicef report has found.
The United Nations report ranks 41 high-income countries against 25 indicators tracking progress against internationally agreed goals to end child poverty and hunger, promote health, ensure quality education, and reduce inequality.
With around 19 per cent, or nearly four million, children in Britain ‘food insecure’ - meaning their family lacks secure access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food - the UK is well above the rich country average of 13 per cent. Only Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania have worse levels of food insecurity, the report published on 15 June adds.
One in 10 children were found to be severely food insecure. While one in three UK children are in what Unicef describes as “multi-dimensional poverty” – which measures deprivation in a number of areas linked to children’s rights including housing, nutrition, clothing and access to social and leisure activities.
End Hunger UK, a coalition including Church Action on Poverty and other charities working for food justice, is calling on the Government to improve provision of free meals for children during school holidays – and to start measuring the scale of food insecurity in the UK.
Josh Fenton-Glynn, End Hunger Campaign Manager, said:
“It is simply not acceptable that 1 in 10 children in our country lives with severe food insecurity. We are only finding this out now because our government refuse to measure the level of food insecurity."
He also said the government's policies were "causing the numbers to rise."
In the run up the general election, an education think tank warned that under proposals unveiled in the Conservative manifesto up to 900,000 children from low-income families will lose their right to free school meals.
Sarah Cook, the director of Unicef Innocenti, which carried out the assessment, said the report was a “wake-up call” to governments that even in high-income countries progress does not benefit all children.
The report is the first attempt to assess the status of children in 41 high-income countries in relation to the UN sustainable development goals agreed in 2016 which focus on ending poverty, protecting the planet and working for the prosperity of all.
PICTURE: A think tank warned that up to 900,000 children in the UK could lose their right to a free school meal.
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