Derry has the highest level of poverty among under 18-year-olds in the UK as well as one of the highest levels in the developed world, according to a report released yesterday by the Derry Children's Commission.
Entitled Wise Up to Child Poverty, the report claims that one in three children in Derry lives below the poverty line and that in some electoral wards that figure rises to four in five. It also states that the child death rate in Derry is 23 per cent higher than the Northern Ireland average and the child accident rate is 41 per cent above the Northern Ireland average.
The report's author, Maria Herron, the commission's policy and information officer, said the statistics painted a bleak picture of what it was like to be a young person in Derry.
"It may seem difficult to believe the extent of poverty here when you see the obvious development in the city. However, this report presents irrefutable evidence that poverty is having a major impact on the lives of many children in the Derry City Council area."
She said it also highlighted the fact that Northern Ireland had no strategy to deal with child poverty despite a promise by the British Labour Party to eradicate child poverty in the UK by 2020.