Skip to main content

Coronavirus Leaves Almost 6 in 10 Argentinian Kids in Poverty

Support Provided By


This story was originally published July 5, 2020 by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Antonio Chenarce, a 49-year-old baker and father of three in Buenos Aires, has struggled to make ends meet since losing his job due to the coronavirus lockdown imposed in the Argentine capital since mid-March.

The health crisis has hammered Argentina's economy, which is now expected to shrink around 12% this year, driving millions into poverty and leaving almost six out of every 10 children and adolescents below the poverty line, United Nations data show.

Children play during the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at Fuerte Apache, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina April 23, 2020. | REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian
Children play during the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at Fuerte Apache, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina April 23, 2020. | REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian

"If I don't work, it's all screwed up. Food is expensive. Hunger doesn't wait for you," Chenarce, who lives with his wife and children in a poor neighborhood of the capital, said in an interview.

Argentina's center-left government has extended a lockdown in and around Buenos Aires until July 17 after a recent sharp spike in COVID-19 cases. It has rolled out measures to support those worst affected, while grappling with a public debt crisis after a ninth sovereign default in May.

The South American country has reported over 75,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with around 1,500 deaths. Cases have jumped recently, but remain fewer than in neighboring Chile, Peru and Brazil.

Roberto Valent, U.N. coordinator in Argentina, said the pandemic was leading to a spike in poverty and predicted that 58.6% of children and adolescents would be in poverty by year's end. That is up from 53% in late 2019.

"We already have a level of growth in poverty that goes far beyond what Argentina could have foreseen even in its worst nightmares," said Valent. Up to 850,000 jobs could be lost this year due to the coronavirus, he estimated.

Chenarce's wife Benita Ortencia Rivero Rodriguez, 44, said the lack of work and money was tough with the children.

"We try to take more care of each other because sometimes the kids lack things. They ask you (for something) and you don't have it and sometimes it costs a lot," she said. "Since this all started, there is just less work."

Reporting by Horacio Soria; Writing by Nicolás Misculin and Adam Jourdan; Editing by Richard Chang.

Support Provided By
Read More
A worker makes checks at the Miditech Gloves' rubber glove factory in Malaysia in 2020. | Miditech Gloves via Thomson Reuters Foundation

COVID-19 Prompts Pivot to Green Alternative to Rubber Gloves

Malaysian firm Meditech Gloves will begin production of natural gloves that can biodegrade 100 times faster than synthetic, petroleum-based options.
Migrant workers from Myanmar who lost their jobs line up for free foods from volunteers following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Bangkok, Thailand April 23, 2020. | REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

Thailand Allows Thousands of Migrants to Extend Work Permits

Activists fear the cost of the process could drive migrant workers deeper into debt and lead to labour exploitation.
Educator Taneka Mckoy Phipps teaches a lesson with a blackboard painted on a wall, in a low-income neighborhood, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Kingston, Jamaica October 27, 2020. October 27, 2020. | REUTERS/Gladstone Taylor

Jamaican Teacher Turns Kingston Walls into Blackboards

With schools closed under COVID-19, Taneka Mckoy has created open-air classrooms by writing lessons on building walls.