Child laborers are seen at a cotton farm in Eastern Anatolia. By European Union standards, two out of every three children live in extreme poverty in Turkey. (Photo: Today’s Zaman)

April 22, 2014, Tuesday/ 19:04:38/ TODAY’S ZAMAN/ ANKARA

By European Union standards, two out of every three children live in extreme poverty in Turkey, which has the highest child poverty rate of 12 selected EU member countries, a study conducted by Bahçeşehir University Center for Economic and Social Research (Betam) has shown.

In press release on Tuesday, Betam researchers said that the study, which is based on Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) data from a 2011 income and living standards survey, ranks Turkey below Eastern European countries like Hungary and Romania in terms of child poverty.

Extreme poverty among children — defined as lacking four or more of nine items on EU statistics agency Eurostat’s material deprivation criteria — in Turkey stood at 65 percent, while this rate is 36 percent in Romania, 29.5 percent in Hungary and 16.5 percent in Greece, Betam said.

Eurostat’s nine criteria are the ability to pay rent and utilities; to adequately heat a home; to pay unexpected costs; to eat meat, fish or a vegetarian equivalent once every two days; to take a week-long holiday outside the home annually; and to own a car, a washing machine, a TV and a phone.

TurkStat, which measures child poverty according to three criteria, found significantly different results in its 2011 survey, the study said: 67.7 percent of children in Turkey were not able to consume protein every two days, 39.9 percent lived in houses with insufficient heating and 40 percent couldn’t afford new clothes. According to TurkStat, 24.8 percent of children in Turkey lacked all three of these basic needs.

[Arabaşlık] Deep regional disparity in child poverty

The BETAM study also pointed to a deep discrepancy between the eastern and western regions of Turkey. While child poverty stood at 50.9 percent in the Aegean region, it was recorded at 80.9 percent in the southeast Anatolian region. Child poverty averaged 75 percent in the northeast, central-eastern and southeast regions of Turkey, according to the study.