One in three Brussels children lives in poverty

One in three children in the Brussels-Capital Region lives in poverty, writes Brusselnieuws.be based on a Unicef report on global child poverty.

In all of Belgium, the number is down slightly compared with 2008, when around 17.2% of Belgian children lived below the poverty line. Last year, the number dropped to 16.4%, or 525,000 children.

The Unicef report sheds light on the growing gap among Belgium’s different regions. In Flanders, one child in 10 lives in poverty, while in Wallonia the number is one in four, and in Brussels one in three. With this figure, Brussels ranks lower than other European countries such as Croatia, Hungary and Bulgaria.

Unicef claims that the average family income in Belgium has fallen to the same level as at the start of the economic crisis six years ago, and urges the Belgian government to invest in measures to protect the children of poor families.