03/04/2025 Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Saskia Kluit (Netherlands, SOC), Chairperson of the PACE Committee on Social Affairs, today expressed concern at the increased risk of poverty, social exclusion and deteriorating living standards among children, pointing out that 19.9 million children currently live at risk of poverty in the EU. “Right here, in Strasbourg, proud to be home to the European Parliament and the headquarters of the Council of Europe, dozens of children sleep on the streets,” she deplored.
“The cost-of-living crisis has led to inadequate social protection, a decrease in real minimum wages, unaffordable housing and food insecurity, and children in particular are disproportionately affected,” she said at the Mid-Term Review Conference of the Strategy for the Rights of the Child (2022-2027), organised in Strasbourg on 3-4 April by the Council of Europe, in the framework of the Luxembourg Presidency of the Committee of Ministers.
Speaking at the opening of a session on combating child poverty and promoting the social inclusion of all children, Ms Kluit emphasised the urgent need to look at how international standards can be leveraged to provide solutions to child poverty and social exclusion, and to ensure accountability, whether through legal action or political advocacy.
Pierre-Alain Fridez (Switzerland, SOC) also took part in this session. Elena Bonetti (Italy, ALDE), PACE General Rapporteur on child participation, and Georgios Stamatis (Greece, EPP/CD) contributed to the sessions on: Children’s rights in the era of digital technologies and artificial intelligence and Protecting children from violence through age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education.
During these same sessions, Italian and Irish children took the floor to discuss the impact of artificial intelligence on their lives as well as to emphasise the crucial importance of age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education to prevent all forms of violence against children.
The conference, which aims to review progress made under the Strategy and identify remaining challenges, features six interactive workshops – coinciding with the six objectives of the Strategy for protecting and promoting the rights of the child – involving representatives of national authorities, parliamentarians, international partners, NGOs, experts and academics, as well as children and young people.
