Not in news but should be! Babies sleeping rough :(

[bkgirl]

Really shocked, met a lady tonight whose son is working for an american firm in Argentina. She explained when she went to visit him how horrified she was at the scale of poverty there - new born babies, small children, pregnant women sleeping under trees/hedges and literally starving. What is going on? Why have we not heard this before. There really is something badly wrong with the world. I in my total ignorance thought of it as a wealthy country with ranches and ladies wearing lots of gold. I am ashamed, I know we can't save the world but is ignorance really bliss? Is this not suitable fodder for our media?

probably the same as all the Americans living in storm drains or in tents in the new 'tent cities' that are springing up in certain areas as the homeless shelters cant accept any more people. Unemployment is rife over there and no work = money = no food, no healthcare, no home, no anything.

It isnt a celebrity, or famous person who has slept with someones wife/husband, so not news worthy.

My sis told me she knew about this and thought most people do (I can't believe I didn't know). As you say, not about celebs so tough, what a shame.

I did know about this, however i would have thought that most would know about the poverty in Argentina, because of the musical Evita, at least?

It is refered to in the Simpsons and Family Guy/American Dad, so my teenagers and their friends think of these countres in the same way as Mexico.

"Is this not suitable fodder for our media?"

It's well-known that in many poverty-stricken parts of the world, children live in appalling conditions. South American societies are famous for their inequalities and their shanty towns. News programmes have a limited time-span and tend to select current foreign stories over old ones.... war, natural disasters, significant changes of government etc. Very simply, if it's not 'new' it's not 'news'. Every time there is a charity event on TV we are shown children struggling to survive, making a living scavenging rubbish heaps, bringing up families when parents have died of HIV/aids. If you don't know about these things, many subscribe to a few charities like Save the Children, read their websites and get their newsletters.

It's the same in India too. A friend has just come back from there and she says it has changed her seeing such poverty.

there are sreet homeless children in all countries across the world, America, Canada, and even this country probably to a far lesser extent though. I listened to an interview on 5 live a few months back a father who was sleeping on the steps of st. Pauls with is wife and young children.

In my own town we have a family with a father of a 7yo, and his pregnant girlfriend (his DD's mother died & he was made redundant due to taking time off to support his DD) LIVING IN THEIR CAR.

All because he took temporary work, and wasn't informed by the DWp when he signed off that it would affect his entitlement to get his rent paid by housing benefit on his private rented house.

AND they have been classed as 'intentionally homeless', and therefore the council has NO duty to house them. This is a relatively affluent town where people commute to London - and we have an entire FAMILY sleeping rough, with NO recourse to ANY housing, including a seven year old (who is thankfully staying with old neighbours right now), and a seven-month pregnant lady.

Link here

It IS happening in the UK right now. And it is sickening. In ALL countries that it happens in.

Why wasn't this reported on Look East or Anglia News, is this not more newsworthy than upgrading of roads or the bloody olympics. I am disgusted and shamed.

Glad it's not just ME feeling like that then, 2old2beamum.

No Huntycat there are a few of us who really do care for the disadvantaged we
must keep fighting. Thanks Dad for teaching me my left wing views since the cradle (wipes tear)

I was shocked to see the extent of the poverty in the US recently on a documentary and would hate it to get like that in this country. It seems against the spirit of British-ness somehow.

I am amazed that we give financial aid to countries like Argentina and India that keep their wealth to the chosen few and disregard such poverty, surely there must be a way of attaching conditions to aid that could make them address some of it. Probably incredibly naive of me though.

Tranquilidade I can see your point BUT in this day and age should any human being be subjected to this level of poverty.

This is not a critism of your comment just adding to it.

There are street children in every single country in South America and in the US too. Any country which has no decent benefits system. Although as Hunty points out, it's frighteningly easy to fall through the cracks in the UK too :(

Well, the UK will be there in just 13 months time - as a country without a decent benefits system. Lets see just how much worse it's going to get...