Seyfettin Gürsel, Gökçe Uysal and Selin Köksal
According to the European Union (EU)’s material deprivation definitions, approximately one third of children, in other words more than 7 million children are living in households that suffer from severe material deprivation. Compared to European countries, the rate of children living under severe material deprivation is higher in Turkey than in some countries with lower levels of GDP per capita as well as in countries that were seriously affected by the Great Recession. The problem of child material deprivation becomes more severe in the eastern regions of Turkey. More than half of the deprived children reside in the area covering the Mediterranean, Northeast Anatolia, Central East Anatolia and South East Anatolia regions. A closer look at the components of severe material deprivation reveals that three quarters of children are deprived from a one-week holiday away from home and more than half of the children live in households that do not own a car. In addition, almost 40 percent of children cannot meet their protein needs sufficiently since they cannot afford a meal with meat, chicken or fish every other day. As a result, Turkey is in urgent need of more efficient social policies fighting severe child material deprivation.
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