UNICEF: Covid epidemic forced 20,000 Czech children into poverty

The effects of the coronavirus pandemic forced around 20,000 children in the Czech Republic into poverty, according to the Czech branch of UNICEF, which is preparing to release a study on the phenomenon towards the end of September.

The director of the UNICEF branch, Pavla Gomba, said on Tuesday that child poverty receives little coverage in the Czech Republic. However, she also said that the Czech Republic’s social support system was well set up before the COVID-19 pandemic and that it did work relatively effectively, otherwise every third child would have found itself in poverty.

The Czech Republic has around the same ratio of children living in relative poverty as Denmark or Island and belongs among states with some of the lowest child poverty levels, Pavla Gomba said.