It
is notorious that in October of 2000, Serbia was deprived of its
sovereignty
and its independence as a result of the counter-revolution, carried out
by the
Imperialists. Nevertheless, UNICEF researchers consider poverty in
Serbia in a
quite metaphysical way. For this reason only the data given in this
study can
be of any interest, if any.
*
In Serbia more than 155,000 children are very poor. An additional
155,000 are
at high risk of falling below the poverty line.
*
Malnutrition and stunting growth is more present in the 20% of the
population
than in the general population; only 9% of the children attend
pre-school
institutions; 6% of children living under the poverty line do not even
go to
primary school, and more often drop out
of primary school altogether; less than two-thirds of poor girls marry
before
they are 18 years of age.
*
Data shows that even by UNICEF standards, almost 50% of the poor
children do
not receive the child allowance and 19% of the richest families (sic)
always do receive this entitlement. It is self-evident that this system
needs
to be improved in to order to include the poor and to discontinue
transferring
the funds to children of the better-off families.
*
The infant mortality rate of children in Serbia is 9.1% and 10,4% for
children
under 5 years of age. The reasons are obvious – malnutrition and the
absence of
free and adequate medical care, but UNICEF won’t tell you this. It
seems from
this UNICEF report that the children in Serbia are poor when their
parents
pretend to earn their living working for a salary!
*
The significance of employment for the poorest is confirmed by the fact
that
getting or losing a job was the crucial factor for the changed status
of
certain households in 2003 – for pushing their consumption below or
above the
poverty line.
*
Over half of all the households (56.2%) say that they are poor and
assessing
their financial situation as bad and very bad.
*
Majority of the households with children thought that the “democratic
changes in 2000” would be good, but their expectations were
unrealistic,
the living standards did not rise, and they still are not able to cover
all
of their
needs that were covered during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Insecurity
is a
fact of life.
We say that:
INSECURITY IS AN ACT OF IMPERIALISM!
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to return to the October 2007 index.