Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-12-Speech-3-242"
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"en.20051012.21.3-242"2
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".
As a result of poverty, 1 200 children die every hour. As a result of poverty, the world loses 900 000 children a month. According to the 2005 UN report, the number of children dying every month due to poverty is equivalent to three times the number of victims of the tsunami that hit South East Asia in December 2004.
Every day, thousands and thousands of people, mainly women and children, die due to poverty. The target set as part of the Millennium Development Goals 2000, aimed at reducing child mortality, will be missed by 4.4 million. By contrast, if one adds together the incomes of the 500 wealthiest people in the world, the figure comes to more than the income of the 416 million poorest people. The 2.5 billion people living on less than USD 2 per day account for 40% of the world’s population, but only 5% of the world’s income. The Millennium Declaration included a promise to reduce poverty by half within 15 years. Yet the gap between rich and poor continues to widen.
There is much that can be done to rescue the large numbers of women and children from poverty. Let me cite just one example. Microfinancing instruments, such as microcredit, have proved effective in combating poverty, and it is women who have derived most benefit from microcredit and have managed to improve their families’ economic situation. These women are unemployed, or on low incomes, and do not have access to conventional financial institutions.
In Europe, too, 16% of the population faced the risk of poverty in 2003, according to Eurostat figures. There are around 70 million poor citizens in the Europe of 25. This is why the Socialist Group in Parliament has tabled an amendment to this report, with the intention of setting up, by legislative means, a guaranteed minimum income – along the lines of what already exists in my country, Portugal – as a way of effectively combating poverty, and in particular poverty among women.
Poverty leads to the trafficking of women and children, to sexual slavery, to violence, to children giving up school, to child labour, to children being placed at risk, to fundamentalism and even to terrorism. Preventing poverty means building a fairer and safer society for all, including the wealthy."@en1
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