He said although Malaysia’s absolute poverty may have been reduced, relative poverty was on the rise as seen through the families living in People’s Housing Projects (PPR) flats.
“Put differently, the country’s poor children are incurring the wrath of the growing inequality in the country,” he said in a statement.
Commenting on a recent study by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) on urban poverty in Kuala Lumpur, he said the PPR flats were Barisan Nasional’s (BN) brainchild for affordable housing.
However, he said the ruling coalition had failed to look into the habitability, security and maintenance of such places.
“Despite knowing that the urban poor live in these places, the government also failed to look into policies to ensure sufficient wages and equal access to food, education and adequate recreational space for families and their children.
“Prime Minister Najib Razak seems focused only on propping up meaningless numbers to say the country is experiencing good economic growth.
“These numbers don’t tell the story of ‘the Other Malaysia’ – where poor families and children are left out in the socioeconomic and political development of the country.”
The Unicef report, released yesterday, said one in five children in Kuala Lumpur’s working class neighbourhoods is stunted, while one in 10 is underweight.
It said the prevalence of underweight, stunting and wasting among children aged below five living in low-cost flats in the capital are double the city’s average, while the number of overweight children is six times higher (23%).
Within Asean, Malaysia ranked eighth (8%) for children who are wasting, third (17.7%) for children who are stunted, fourth (12.4%) for children who are underweight, seventh (7.1%) for children who are overweight and ninth (12.7%) for children who are obese.
Santiago said this was an indication of Malaysia’s development narrative, where poor families were unable to provide food, financial security and a decent future for their children.
“Urban poor families are finding it harder to cope, and the rising cost of living has a severe impact on their spending power.
“Forced to make ends meet, they end up living in these low-cost flats where many still cannot pay for their rent or maintenance fee.
“Poverty, inequality and years of low wages have come to debilitate the very young.”
He said higher salaries, better food and better education was needed for these children to grow in a conducive environment.
Calling for the study to be extended to other urban areas in the country, he said it was time for Najib to “go back to the drawing board” and rethink Malaysia’s development.