Child poverty: a priority challenge

This issue of Challenges resumes the analysis of child poverty that was addressed in the first issue of the publication. The main article presents data on child poverty in Latin America, but explicitly measures it with a rights approach. This means considering children to be poor when at least one of their rights is unmet, or when they suffer at least one basic deprivation. Nonetheless, in child poverty, multiple deprivations occur simultaneously, reinforcing each other and undermining children's and adolescents' development.

Child abuse: a painful reality behind closed doors

Child abuse violates the most basic rights of children and adolescents. As documented in the main article of this issue of Challenges, child abuse is a massive, daily and underreported problem that affects the population of Latin America and the Caribbean. It manifests itself in different forms, including physical and psychological aggression, rape and sexual abuse, and takes place in the home, in neighbourhoods, at school, at work and in legal and child protection institutions. Abuse tends to be transmitted from one generation to the next, and the individuals most often responsible are parents or other adult members of the household

Evaluation report of the regional workshop on the measurement of poverty in the Caribbean

1. The member and associate member countries of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean/Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (ECLAC/CDCC) have committed to pursuing and achieving the Millennium Development Goals, a common set of goals and targets to bring all people up to minimum acceptable standards of human development by 2015. 2. However, in spite of various capacity-building initiatives, Caribbean countries continued to experience difficulties in addressing additional demands of monitoring and measuring progress created by the Millennium Development Goals and other Internationally Agreed Development Goals. Therefore, it was necessary to implement activities to ensure the further building/strengthening of institutional capabilities for generating reliable social, economic and environmental statistics among Caribbean States. 3. The ECLAC project entitled “Strengthening the Capacity of National Statistical Offices in the Caribbean Small Island Developing States to fulfil the Millennium Development Goals and other Internationally Agreed Development Goals” sought to build and strengthen institutional capabilities for generating and compiling reliable social, economic and environmental statistics in the Caribbean subregion, through the provision of technical support, as well as the conduct of training workshops for statisticians and policymakers. 4. Within the objectives of that project, ECLAC Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean convened a regional training workshop on the measurement of poverty in the Caribbean in Port of Spain, to build the capacity of government officials and other relevant stakeholders. 5. The overall objective of the workshop was to develop and strengthen the national technical capacity of public officials in data processing, systematization and dissemination of poverty indicators and measurement in the Caribbean subregion. The workshop further sought to review and discuss the current approaches to poverty measurement and monitoring in an effort to identify methods to ensure that monitoring and reporting of the Millennium Development Goals were conducted according to internationally agreed upon methodologies. Furthermore, the workshop also intended to review different methods of poverty measurements, including the multidimensional methodology for the measurement of poverty. 6. Participants were introduced to different methods of poverty measurements and other aggregation proposals which would enable countries to better measure progress towards Goal 1 on poverty, report on it and apply evidence-based approaches to national policymaking and planning.

Growth, Poverty and Inequality in the Caribbean

.--Director’s Desk: Growth, Poverty and Inequality in the Caribbean.--Non-Comunicable Diseases: A Growing Epidemic.--Policies and Programmes for an Ageing Population.--Sexual and Reproductive Health and HIV in the Caribbean.--International Migration and Development: Challenges and Opportunites.--Gender Based Violence

Gender equality, poverty and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the Caribbean subregion

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are fundamentally a set of eight global goals for the achievement of basic economic and social rights for all, with time-bound targets to be achieved by the year 2015. In adopting the Millennium Declaration in 2000, the member States of the United Nations pledged to “spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty.”1 The focus of this report is on the progress made by Caribbean countries towards the achievement of Goal 1: the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger; and Goal 3: the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women, and identifies linkages between the two goals.

Report of the AD HOC Expert Group meeting on social exclusion, poverty, inequality, crime and violence: Towardsa research agenda for informed public policy for Caribbean SIDS

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean convened an expert group meeting on Social Exclusion, Poverty, Inequality – Crime and Violence: Towards a Research Agenda for informed Public Policy for Caribbean SIDS on Friday 4 April 2008, at its conference room in Port of Spain. The meeting was attended by 14 experts drawn from, the University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago; and Mona Campus, Jamaica; the St. Georges University, Grenada; the Trinidad and Tobago Crime Commission and the Ministry of Social Development, Government of Trinidad and Tobago and representative of Civil Society from Guyana. Experts from the United Nations System included representatives from the United Nations Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Barbados; the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Port of Spain and UNDP Barbados/SRO and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). The list of participants appears as an annex to this report. The purpose of the meeting was to provide a forum in which differing theories and methodologies useful to addressing the issues of social exclusion, poverty, inequality, crime and violence could be explored. It was expected that at the end of the meeting there would be consensus on areas of research which could be pursued over a two to four-year period by the ECLAC Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean and its partners, which would lead to informed public policy in support of the reduction of the growing violence in Caribbean society.

An assessment of social vulnerability and resilience in poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPS/I-PRSPS) of selected Caribbean SIDS

The study undertakes a review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), and Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (I-PRSPs) of four selected Caribbean SIDS from the Eastern Caribbean. The countries had participated in the Poverty Reduction Strategy initiative formulated by the World Bank. The country papers reviewed were the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The review assesses and provides a comparative analysis of the general awareness of the notions of vulnerability and the inclusion and use of strategies that address the reduction of vulnerability and the strengthening of resilience by the countries reviewed. It also explores how vulnerability reduction strategies were applied to differing groups, as elaborated through the PRSPs.

Inclusive social development: The next generation of policies for overcoming poverty and reducing inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean

Foreword by Alicia Bárcena

A voz da criança institucionalizada: representações sociais de família e abrigo

Pós-graduação em Serviço Social - FCHS

Trabalho com redução à condição análoga à de escravos e ofensa à dignidade da pessoa humana: tráfico de mulheres para fins de exploração sexual comercial, no Brasil (2002-2008)

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)