Poland leads in child well-being -- UNICEF

There is a 2013 UNICEF report which is obviously far more up to date than one almost a decade old.

unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc11_eng.pdf

Poland ranks 19th out of 29 countries.


Fallen to 19th best.


Now 9th.


In the newer report weight is assessed by BMI, it doesn't say if this was the case for the old one, but Poland is now in 22nd place ( US is 29th ), and approx 17% of young people are overweight.


That's not true, the category in your report was, " Percentage of 15 year olds who had had sexual intercourse", NOT those under 15.
There is no same category in the newer report, only teenage fertility rates for 15 - 19 year olds.

I'm not surprised you preferred the 2007 version.

One of the main reasons Poland is a good place for children is that the child abuse you advocate is illegal.

Indeed, there are no boarding schools in Poland so no people with boarding school syndrome.

Oh dear, showing ignorance of Poland yet again. The reality is that there are a number of schools in Poland which offer boarding (I used to work at one). And they return results significantly above the national average (including the one I used to work at). But I suppose it would be hard to know such things when one is in Birmingham.

Aren't the pupils suffering from the boarding school syndrome after they graduate those schools?

^ The last data I saw showed that they did noticeably better than their colleagues at university. It might be something to do with them having already lived away from home.

Sadly the number of children at boarding schools in Poland is falling, so the number of kids with that advantage is also falling. Instead bright kids are wasting hours every day on travelling to and from school. Hopefully that will change in the future.

no itisnt..it was quite a big story 2 years ago.it was found that met police and Scotland yard been fiddling with crime statistics in order to hide real crime figure and show immigrants(including polish as myself) in better light.manipulations were widespread.

so my point is,i dont trust official figures from "politically correct" goverments. they are all fiddled
telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10557155/Lord-Stevens-admits-police-have-been-fiddling-crime-figures-for-years.html
telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10558567/Scotland-Yard-chief-admits-claims-of-crime-figure-manipulation-conta in-some-truth.html
am not saying its all great in Poland,but UK has some institutional pathology going on rooted in political correctness and "creating reality" when facts are becoming unconvenient.

Most of the child abuse in Poland comes from "older kids" at and after school. Many school children look with dread upon Monday morning when they will again be subjected to extortion, stolen lunches, bullying and beating. The blinkered PC crowd somehow fail to takle notice of that problem, as their priority is to destroy the nuclear family. That was also the goal fo Stalin's Komsomol.

Rather proves my point - it's all in the open. In Poland, would you have "found out"?


Any proof of that?

Talk to kids in primary and middle school and you'll have plenty of proof.

Actually, the biggest problem in Poland is none of those things. It's rather the fact that kids are going to school hungry. Not a single government in Poland has done anything about this - 500zł doesn't help with pathological families that just see it as an excuse to drink even more, and every government has completely failed to deal with it. Poor families from normal backgrounds find ways to feed kids - but it doesn't help with the families where the parents are flat out drunk day after day.

I'm working on an initiative to try and bring breakfast clubs into schools so that these kids have a chance to at least start the day with a hot meal. Easier said than done, but we'll see.

Where are your statistics to back this claim up?
I would think it far more likely that most of the child abuse in Poland is going on at home behind closed doors, and providing data for that is downright impossible as it's generally only when a child dies that the issue is highlighted.


From the newer UNICEF report I linked to, which you chose to totally ignore, bullying has fallen very slightly from 30 to 28% since the 2007 report.


In the 2013 report, only 60% of schoolchildren reported eating breakfast.

There's a huge problem with it. I wish I could give more concrete examples, but I've seen it time and time again with outwardly 'happy' families actually being horrific behind closed doors. It's not just poor people - often rich lawyers, doctors, etc are also inflicting harm on their families.


Eye-opener, isn't it?

So, what happened from 2009 to 2013 that according to the UNICEF report that significantly worsened condition of children in Poland? Would that be a coincidence that worsening of circumstances of children in Poland in those years correspondents closely with allegedly beneficial rule of the PO government ? I think not!

It is pretty certain that we got ourselves proof in a form of the UNICEF reports that PO's time in power was anything but beneficial to the general population of Poland.

I think there is in most countries. There was a truly shocking case in Scotland recently where toddler Liam Fee was abused and killed by his mother. As usual, there were failings by social workers, the Police and NHS. I'm sure it's no different in Poland, those cases that see the light of day are probably the tip of the iceberg :(


Well the UNICEF reports are specifically focusing on child poverty, but yes, child abuse is certainly not restricted by class.


It's sad. Good luck with trying to get the breakfast club thing going though, schools in the UK have them.


From 2007 to 2013, not 2009.
Iron, all i did was to present an updated report, as I thought it ludicrous that Polonius was linking to one almost a decade old, and I'm sure he knew that there must have been a more up to date report too.

I haven't looked at factors as to why conditions for children worsened, just looked at the same data that Polonius linked to in the 2007 report and quoted the differences.


I don't think it's quite that simple, plus you really have to look at the data in both reports carefully. It is presented in a slightly different way in the 2013 report. The categories listed are not quite the same, one category is missing altogether, and in addition in some categories, children of different ages are represented in contrast to data in the 2007 report. Plus 29 countries are included instead of the 25 in the 2007 report.

I would be loathe to say that the worsening of childrens' circumstances is just down to the government in power at the time to be honest, things are rarely that cut and dried, and if anything, their circumstances should have improved as generally,conditions for most people * allegedly * improved ;)

'Talking to kids' ain't 'proof' of anything Po.


More common than you think, and even some educated people here in Poland have 'interesting' ideas about childrearing...


I think it's important to remember that Social Workers operate within very precise legal parameters and in some of the cases that make the news they simply had no legal grounds on which to intervene further.


Yes - it takes a time for anything a government does to take effect and it's all cumulative over the years anyway. It's actually easy to make things worse; the last Labour government took a decade to lift two million children above the poverty line and the Tories took only 18 months to reverse that and put 2 million children back in poverty.

I appreciate what you're saying and theirs is a job I certainly would never want, but in the particular case I was referring to, a senior Fife social worker admitted at the court that the child had " fallen off their radar " when a staff member went on sick leave and no-one else was assigned to his case.

I don't really want to go too far off topic with this particular case though, as it didn't occur in Poland.

Not good at all and of course tragic consequences. Social Services are certainly underfunded staff-wise and this situation is even worse in Poland. Plus the law here has problems. There was an awful case a few years ago wgere a man who had been jailed for molesting his own very young daughter moved straight back into the family home from jail. He had a legal right to be there and the rest of the family had to flee to homeless accommodation. And yes, it was in a village and the locals (probably related) mostly supported him. The state admitted at the time that they were powerless to stop him. It got quite a lot of publicity at the time.

Does Poland have social workers as in the UK? If the parents of a child being abused are reported to authorities, what happens next?


That's unbelievable :(


If that is the case, you would think that steps would be taken to prevent something like this happening again.

Yes, though their powers are very restricted, even in emergency cases.


It's immediately a matter for the prosecutor however it's harder to move a child immediately to a place of safety; they are often left with babcia who almost invariably starts working on the kid to get them to deny anything.


There was a lot of media fuss and it made prime-time news programmes but i don't think much happened.

It doesn't always happen in the UK either when clearly there are occasions when children should definitely have been removed from the home to a place of safety, but to leave them with a family member is ridiculous. Way too much scope to work on said family member for access with potentially tragic results.


Parallels with the UK. It seems that after every tragic child's death, there's an outcry of " this must never happen again ". Sadly, lessons never seem to be learned, and victims just slip through the net of an underfunded and overstretched system.

I know and as always I used this opportunity to ask a question that begged to be asked.


Nothing is that simple as it seems as a rule but there is a correlation and those question need to asked and answered by those who claim that PO government for the last eight years has been a great success and prosperity for all.

I can agree that could have been unprecedented prosperity for some but in terms of the general population in Poland things during the PO rule has gone wrong or at the least not better.


Yes, to be honest to be certain it would require a study and evidence. Hoverer I think we can safely venture a judgment that at the very least nothing has been done to improve implorable, disgraceful and appealing circumstances of nearly million children in Poland. That says a volume about such a government that neglects its duty towards children - don't you agree?

Starting by looking at the real problem - that many children are condemned to a miserable life because of the attitude of their parents - is a good place to start. The negativity starts from day 1 - 18 years later, the kids have no hope in life because they grew up in a negative, hopeless environment.


It's not really a big secret that the PO/PSL government was a great government for those that wanted to get up and do something. It wasn't a good government for those that needed their hand held, and PO were apathetic at best towards pathology in society.

Unfortunately in Poland, the problems are caused by culture. Someone drinking their entire income down the drain will tend to be ignored by neighbours, rather than reported - so children end up growing up in an environment where they have nothing and society is desperately unwilling to do anything about it. People don't volunteer with such kids, and the middle classes in particular have a deep rooted loathing towards such children.

PiS won't change anything - society needs to change as a whole for something to change. Breakfast clubs are easy and simple to set up, but I know from first hand experience that school directors are often completely unwilling to entertain ideas because 'it might be a problem'.

And don't get me started on the way that private schools receive public funding. Just don't.

That is not looking at the real problem but victim blaming as those patents in the overwhelming majority are also victims of their circumstances.


Sure survival of the fittest and those fittest took it all from taxpayers. Hardly a level playing field.


At last it is a start.

Many of them are suffering with self inflicted illnesses. They need help - yes - but you also have to remember that many of them don't want help, or they got in a mess because they wanted to have the best and latest things without having the means to pay for it.


A start? You call a sixfold increase in police interventions since April to be a start?

The shocking reality that PiS have acted as enablers by providing pathology with cash to be spent on alcohol is exactly that - shocking.

The parents have to go where the work is. In the past, every town had a metalworks. To provide employment. In today's world, however deplorable the truth is, Norman Tebbitt was right. You have to get on your bike and go where the work is. And provide for YOUR children. Look the reference up.

Poland is too poor for socialism, and those of us who work hard for a living ain't gonna pay for people to sit around on "the farm" doing bugger all.

PS If succcessive governments cared at all, they would demolish the inner cities and half of Silesia and revitalise the cities. We have talked about this before. They refuse to act, and actually want to subjugate the poor. This PIS government will be only worse. Paying for booze and cigarettes. with the taxpayers' money.

Now how did I know you were going to do that? ;)


With any government you are going to get people who agree with the policies and people who don't, but generally speaking most governments are very good at looking after those at the top whilst ignoring those at the lower levels of society. Herein lies the problem. The average person is going to look at the government and ask how, if at all, their lives have improved under it.

Between 2007 and 2015 when PO were in power, minimum wage went up over 50% from 1148 PLN to 1750 PLN per month, whereas from 2002 to 2007, minimum wage stayed at more or less the same level. On the surface this looks good but of course one would have to look at how living costs have risen at the same time.

Regarding child poverty, I don't think any government fully addresses or tackles the issue, whether in Poland or not.
By the time Thatcher had finished her term in office in the UK, there were 3.3 million children living in poverty, compared with 1.7 million when she came to power. The woman was loved by the middle and upper classes, but did very little for the average working class person. It's not that much different now in the UK, child poverty has increased massively again and we now have food banks in this country. Funny how those austerity measures never really affect those at the top isn't it?

I don't know enough about PO policies from their time in power, but for the average Pole I doubt they made too much of a difference, and of course, that UNICEF report doesn't just include Poland, you have to look at the information in respect to the other countries Poland is being compared with, such as the UK for example.


It would and the results from both of those reports are very broad. The 2007 report for example is quoting figures from 2000 in some cases. Although the report was published in 2007, that information had been collated over many previous years, and under different governments. In that report for example, the child deprivation rate is 21%, with 20% of children living in a low affluence family. There are no corresponding categories in the 2013 report which makes it very hard to draw a comparison.

In addition, you would also have to look at how other countries are performing. Poland slipped 6 places in the education table. This doesn't necessarily mean that education in Poland got worse, just that maybe other countries did better in the education stakes, and of course, more countries were included in the 2013 report than in the 2007 one.


Variation in government policy is of course to some degree going to account for variations in child poverty levels, in Poland and in other countries. To a certain extent I agree with what you are saying, but you would also in that case have to look at previous government policies too. Child poverty is not a new problem and has not been tackled in the past, both by right and left wing governments.

As Delph was saying, there are also cultural problems too, these can't be ignored and are also part of the problem.

Don't shortchange PO. Their rule was highly beneficial to oligarchs, foreign agents of influence, scamsters, embezzlers and others feathering their nests and lining their pockets at the taxpayer's expense.

The truth is that many people don't want to do just that. There's the example of Amazon in Wroclaw and Poznan where they would employ anyone with a pulse. Yet 100km away from Poznań, there's some horrific unemployment - but people simply don't want to move because they're from the village and they want to stay in the village.

You have made a few good points. However all issues in a population have their social, economical and political dimensions. I'm focusing more on the last one.

Also comparing Poland to UK is pointless as poverty doesn't mean the same in both countries.


I think that cultural problems are nonissue here. It is rather unemployment and lack of perspective and prospects. Topped by the wrong approach by the government that either ignore it or thinks that throwing some money on them will solve it.

The major problem is no general consensus as to what direction Poland should take.