Unicef report

Children at the sharp end of British capitalism

A SHOCK report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says that children in Britain have the lowest levels of well-being in the developed world. Successive capitalist governments have done little for young people.

Gross and rising inequality is having a devastating effect. Britain ranks in the bottom third of UNICEF's rankings for material welfare, health and safety, family relationships, behaviour and risk-taking (eg drugs, alcohol) and young people's sense of their own well-being.

Child poverty in the UK has doubled since Thatcher came to power in 1979. One in seven children live in households earning less than half the national average wage. Britain is the fifth richest country in the world but it is 18th out of 21 in the report for material welfare and 17th for school achievement, further education and the transition to employment.

A delegate to the Socialist Party congress, BECKHI WILDE told us how the young people of Merseyside were at the sharp end of British capitalism.

"50% of the children in Liverpool are living in poverty. This fact only hit me properly last week when I was walking through Liverpool at about 10pm and I saw a little six year-old curled up under a blanket in a shop doorway, trying to sleep.

"The way our job system works is also very difficult. At the moment I'm having to work three unpaid jobs so I can have six months experience for when I turn 16 and start getting paid. How are you meant to get six months experience if you're not allowed the job without it?"