New data has revealed more than 22 per cent of children in the north are experiencing poverty, amid warnings that a slight decrease in figures is unlikely to be a long-term trend.
Statistics from the End Child Poverty Coalition group show that west and north Belfast are the areas with the highest number of children living in poverty.
In West Belfast, 28.5 per cent of all children live in low-income households, while the figure for North Belfast is 27.6 per cent.
Newry and Armagh is the area with the third highest rate, at 26.3 per cent.
The figures reveal 62.7 per cent of all children in Northern Ireland who experience poverty live in households with at least one adult in work, while 37 per cent of children in lone-parent households experience poverty after housing costs.
The area with the lowest number of children experiencing poverty is North Down, where the figure for the 2021/22 period was 15.3 per cent.
However, the north had the lowest percentage for all UK regions last year, following a three per cent drop, with England the highest at 31 per cent.
The figures have prompted a call for the UK government to scrap its two-child policy for claiming Universal Credit.
A spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Network (NIAPN) - part of the UK-wide End Child Poverty Coalition - said the group is "gravely concerned" following the data.
"The numbers of children in poverty across the UK is a massive indicator of a punitive and unjust social security system and wages that remain too low to pull the working poor out of poverty," they said.
"We hope that MPs, MLAs and local councilors use this data to guide their anti-poverty policies and commit to a long overdue NI Anti-Poverty Strategy.
"Child poverty in Northern Ireland has seen a slight reduction in 2021/22 and has been kept at bay in comparison to the shocking figures from other parts of the UK.
"This is in no small part due to the welfare mitigations implemented here. However, there is nothing to say that this will be a long term trend, as the two-child policy disproportionally impacts children in NI, as there are more households with children and more children in those households here in comparison to the rest of the UK."
