MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine Catholic University study shows 1.5 million children in food crisis

“Half of the children in the country live in households that cannot raise the necessary income to eat, dress, and transport, ” Ianina Tuñón explained.

Around 1.5 million children are not fed properly amidst Argentina's current crisis, according to the Argentine Catholic University's (UCA) latest study on the matter, which was released Wednesday. The new record means an increase of around 456,000 children from the previous research.

The UCA's Observatory on Social Debt of the Childhood determined that the severe food insecurity went from 9.6% to 13%, with an increase of 3.4 percentage points due mainly to the country's inflationary upheaval.

According to the study, between the end of 2017 and the same period of 2018, the number of hungry children under 17 went from 1,116,160 to 1,573,000, with an increase of 456,840 young people.

In addition to that, the number of children and adolescents in households experiencing food insecurity increased from 21.7% to 29.3%.

“It is estimated that half of the children in the country are poor in terms of income, that is, they , but not all poor children go hungry,” said Ianina Tuñón, author of the report along with Santiago Poy, in statements to the La Nación website.

According to the last report of the Observatory of Social Debt of the UCA, in Argentina 33.6% of the population is poor, which means that 13,600,000 inhabitants are in that situation.

The number of people up to 17 years of age who are in poverty increased between 2017 and 2018 from 44% to 51.7%.