Kids in poverty have tripled in Italy

(ANSA) - Rome, October 21 - The number of minors in poverty in Italy has tripled over the last 10 years, Save the Children said Monday.
    In Italy, it said more than 1.26 million kids live in absolute poverty, according to 2018 figures.
    The figure has risen from 375,000 or 3.7% of the underage population in 2008 to 12.5% last year.
    Of this 1.26 million, 563,000 live in the poorer south of Italy, the Mezzogiorno.
    Some 508,000 live in the north and 192,000 in the centre.
    The figures emerged in STC's Atlas on At Risk Children.
    It was released in 10 cites Monday on the occasion of the launch of the campaign Let's Light Up The Future.
    The campaign is aimed at fighting educational poverty.
    The report also said one in seven children in Italy has dropped out of education.
    Child poverty in Italy "is an absolute record among European countries and saw a sharp worsening in the hardest years of the economic crisis, between 2011 and 2014, when the rate of children in poverty went from 5% to 10%, said the report, The Time Of Children, authored by Giulio Cederna.
    photo: Save the Children Italia chief Claudio Tesauro