Experts support more robust social spending to boost the social inclusion of society's neediest.
"I first felt my poverty when I started to go to a primary school a bit far from our neighbourhood. My peers would come to school with trendy and colorful bags and often new uniforms," Esra, who lives in Istanbul's Bakirkoy district, told SES Türkiye. "But our lifestyle was different. They had their own rooms while I would study, dine, and sleep in our one-bedroom apartment. I had only one uniform that we would wash on weekends."
The number of poor children in Turkey has dropped in recent years amid the nation's strong economic growth. But, like Esra, a quarter of the nation's youngsters continue to live in poverty, according to a new report by Centre for Economic and Social Research (BETAM) at Istanbul-based Bahcesehir University.
At 24.6 percent, Turkey's child poverty rate is consistently among the highest of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Economist Gokce Uysal, one of the co-authors of the BETAM report, said Turkey's child poverty figure stood at 34.7 percent in 2006.
Alongside sustained economic development, the Turkish government has implemented a number of social support initiatives, including payments to families for sending their children to school, expanding access to healthcare, and efforts to boost nutrition at schools.
A decrease in certain household expenses has also allowed families to devote resources to other needs, according to Uysal.
"It is believed that the big decrease in the price of clothing has something to do with the attention-grabbing improvement [in child poverty]. The fact that heating and nutrition [expenses] have been reduced has also registered improvements," Uysal told SES Türkiye.
Yet Uysal and other experts interviewed by SES Türkiye said the persistence of high rates of child poverty is cause for alarm. Social programmes are important part of the solution, they said, but not sufficient on their own.
"Social transfers aren't enough, but not necessarily in the sense that the government isn't spending enough. We might not be reaching the right families," Uysal said. "Furthermore, the parents of these [impoverished] children mostly work in the informal sector, meaning they don't qualify for social security."
According to the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), no OECD country that spends at least 10 percent of its GDP on social welfare has more than a 10 percent rate of child poverty. At the same time, countries that devote less than 5 percent of their GDP to social programmes tend to have child poverty rates of at least 15 percent.
The ruling Justice and Development Party said in a statement on its website that it is firmly committed to improving the lot of children in a comprehensive way.
"Our main priority is to secure equality of opportunity in education for every children," it says. "For all socially impoverished children, we're going to expand the 'Professional Foster Family or Adoption System' initiative in place of boarding homes."
Iraz Soyalp, a social policy expert at UNICEF Turkey, said uniting the government's social programmes with more broad-based efforts would accelerate progress in building a more inclusive society.
"It is important that the authorities give conditional cash transfers to families to encourage them to send their children to school. However, we don't take economic support as the only analysis unit for preventing child poverty," she told SES Türkiye. "The state should invest in children at early ages to eliminate the child poverty at the origin."
Experts also cite the importance of empowering women in reducing child poverty. Research shows that women pass on the benefits of education and economic inclusion to their children. Turkey has a low rate of women's participation in the workforce.
Child poverty in Turkey is lowest in west Anatolia, where the figure stands at 13.6 percent. Southeast Anatolia grapples with the highest at 42 percent.
Source: SES Türkiye / Menekşe Tokyay
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