full report accessible via BBC2 Newsnight website: 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/6359161.stm

http://www.unicef-icdc.org/
 
The report on Britain's children makes grim reading Britain's children are 
unhappier and feel less loved than those in almost any of the world's 
wealthiest nations, according to a Unicef report.

Unicef considered six factors crucial to children's lives: material 
well-being; health and safety; education; family and peer relationships; 
behaviour and risks; and subjective well-being.

Overall the Netherlands fares best, ranking in the top ten for all six 
critera. Britain and America come in the bottom third in five of the six 
categories, ranking well behind the likes of Greece, Poland and the Czech 
Republic.

The report, revealed exclusively on Newsnight, draws on data from existing 
studies by the World Health Organisation and the OECD.

Grim reading 

The report makes grim reading, suggesting that growing up in Britain may 
leave children disadvantaged not because the country is materially poor but 
because of "relative income poverty" - the large disparity in wealth 
between the nation's poorest and the rest.

Only in the United States is the gap wider. Scandinavia has the lowest rate 
of relative income poverty.

According to Manu Vatish, consultant obstetrician at University Hospital, 
Coventry, this is an obvious sign of deprivation.

"It continues throughout their childhood. It will lead them into 
adolescence, it will alter their job prospects and then they'll continue in 
a cycle of deprivation into the next generation," he says.

Drink and drugs 

But the American dream lives on: children in the US are the most ambitious, 
whereas in the UK, one third expect to find no better than unskilled work.

When it comes to sex, drugs and drink, Britain's teenagers are the worst 
abusers. Fewer than a tenth of French 11 to 15 year olds, compared to a 
third of the UK's, say they've been drunk at least twice.

As for drugs, only Swiss and Canadian teenagers have used cannabis more 
frequently than the British.

Nearly 40% of British 15 year olds say they have had sex - far more than 
the next most sexually precocious, the Germans and the Swedes where the 
figure is below 30%.

Family 

Britain has the second highest incidence of young people living in single 
parent families. Almost 17%compared to just 7% in Italy and 9% in Belgium.

And Britain comes bottom in family and peer relationships and in how young 
people feel about themselves. In Switzerland over 80% of youngsters find 
their peers kind and helpful.

From Portugal to Germany and Scandinavia well over 70% do likewise. But in 
Britain the figure is a dismal 43%
 

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