#469 Erkenningsnummer P708816
march 1, 2017 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ read more at www.flanderstoday.org current affairs \ p2
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Gent vs Genk
BUSiNESS \ p6
innovation \ p7
Going bananas
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An open book
A record three Belgian sides are still in the Europa League’s final 16, with KAA Gent and KRC Genk drawn against each other
That bright yellow variety is only one of hundreds more that we’re missing out on, according to a KU Leuven lab that holds the world’s largest collection of banana plants
A Flemish organisation is hosting shared readings that get diverse groups of people talking and sharing in personal and unexpected ways
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© Guido Koppes
Kid power
Flanders’ children’s rights commissioner on breaking the cycle of poverty Andy Furniere More articles by Andy \ flanderstoday.org
With a new book, Flanders’ children’s rights commissioner, Bruno Vanobbergen, lays out a plan for addressing rising poverty among the youngest and most vulnerable members of society.
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hen Bruno Vanobbergen wrote his new book, he wasn’t thinking of winter at all. Instead, with Spelen in zwarte sneeuw (Playing in Black Snow), the children’s rights commissioner set out to tackle one of the most pressing issues of our time. Over the course of the book, Vanobbergen outlines the challenges to fighting child poverty in Flanders. The “fragile manifesto”, as he calls it, urges the government not to promote individual responsibility and self-reliance as the solutions, but to take a structural approach.
The office of the children’s rights commission is an independent body set up by the Flemish Parliament in 1997 to oversee the application of the UN convention on the rights of the child. The commissioner also represents children’s rights within the general public, examines government legislation and deals with complaints about breaches. Vanobbergen has held the position since 2009. The reason he wrote the book, he says, is that the problem of children living in poverty keeps getting worse. About one in five children in Belgium lives in poverty, and the percentage of children born every year into a disadvantaged family has risen from 6.4% in 2004 to 12% in 2015. Children from large or single-parent families, or whose parents are foreign-born, unemployed or low-educated, are at the highest risk of falling into poverty. “When Belgium
held the rotating presidency of the European Council in 2010, child poverty was a hot topic and plans were made to significantly decrease its prevalence,” says Vanobbergen. “It’s very worrying to see that we have made no progress to achieve that goal since then. On the contrary.” The second reason, he says, is that children and parents who live in poverty are framed as the innocent victims and the guilty perpetrators, respectively. “Children, of course, have a very active role, and many factors can prevent parents from escaping financial troubles.” He offers the example of a child who discovered where her mother kept her financial records and checked them regularly to see whether or not it was a good time to ask her for new clothes. The book also points out that children provide their parents with both emotional and practical support, continued on page 5