The percentage of children at or below the poverty line in Cyprus stood at 18.1% in 2022, equivalent to around 31 thousand children according to Eurostat data, the Commissioner for Children's Rights said in a joint statement with the National Anti-Poverty Network Cyprus (EAPN-Cyprus), the Pancyprian Coordinating Committee on Child Protection and Welfare (PCCPWC), the Cyprus Children's Parliament and SISTEMA Cyprus, announcing their decision that 2024 is dedicated to the fight against child poverty.

As stated, the bodies decided that during 2024 they will work together and carry out a series of joint actions to inform and raise public awareness, aiming at involving children themselves in the actions.

It is added that in this context, a series of roundtable discussions will be held to draw conclusions and promote positions to the relevant decision-making bodies and State agencies aimed at eliminating child poverty and the social exclusion of children, with a parallel objective being to mobilise the State apparatus, institutions, municipalities and communities, organisations and citizens to combat child poverty.

As noted, stakeholders point out that child poverty is one of the most serious problems facing today's societies, stressing that successive economic crises, the COVID-19 pandemic, wars, poverty, the housing problem, high inflation, climate change, reductions in real wages and the living standards of workers have an impact on children all over the world, but also on children living in Cyprus.

At the same time, it is stressed, that 1% of the world's population has accumulated more than 50% of the world's wealth, based on UNICEF and World Bank data, 330 million children live in conditions of extreme poverty and material deprivation, with 1 in 4 children, or 25%, living on the poverty line and social exclusion in the European Union.