All Campaigns subcategories:
Poverty keywords:
Child poverty
Highlight keywords |
Print this article
Search site for keywords: Capitalism - Britain - Young people - Welfare - Liverpool - Child poverty
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?"
Donate to the Socialist Party
Finance appeal
The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
- The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
- When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.
Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.
We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.
LATEST POSTS
12 May Stop Israeli state brutality
 |
9 May Post-election meetings
15 May Birmingham Socialist Party: How can we fight for socialist change and a new workers' party?
17 May Oxfordshire & Aylesbury Socialist Party: The role of the state
18 May Bristol North Socialist Party: Liverpool - history of socialist struggle
CONTACT US
Phone our national office on 020 8988 8777
Email: [email protected]
Locate your nearest Socialist Party branch Text your name and postcode to 07761 818 206
Regional Socialist Party organisers:
Eastern: 079 8202 1969
East Mids: 077 3797 8057
London: 075 4018 9052
North East: 078 4114 4890
North West 079 5437 6096
South West: 077 5979 6478
Southern: 078 3368 1910
Wales: 079 3539 1947
West Mids: 024 7655 5620
Yorkshire: 078 0983 9793
ABOUT US
ARCHIVE
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999