UK behind Yemen, Sudan in Global Index of Children’s Rights

By Staff Agencies

The suspension of vaccination programs, school closures and a surge in domestic violence during coronavirus lockdowns are likely to derail a decade’s worth of progress for children, according to new global research.

The UK fared poorly, ranking in 169th place behind countries including Sudan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The country’s poor treatment of Roma and Gypsy children was criticized while the UK’s anti-terrorism strategy, Prevent, was found to have a stigmatizing effect on Muslim children.

British children’s views were not systematically heard in developing policy that affects them, the report found. It also highlighted concerns around lack of legal aid while many children feel they are not listened to by social workers, paid carers, judges and other professionals working in family legal proceedings.

Chad has fallen behind Afghanistan to reach the bottom of the rankings while Sierra Leone has the third worst result.

The advocacy group’s chairman, Marc Dullaert, told the Guardian the pandemic would have a dire impact: “Our index shows that even before Covid-19, countries were not allocating sufficient budgets around the protection of child rights. Now we expect the economic consequences of the crisis to turn the clock back 10 years on the progress made around the wellbeing of children, unless governments take swift action.”

Countries are scored using UN data and evidence collected from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. They are assessed across five areas including health, education, and enabling an environment that promotes child rights.
“Overall, we see two big red flags in the findings this year,” said Dullaert. One is lack of government funding around children’s health, education and protection.

The other is around the discrimination of children with more than a third of countries having the lowest possible score in this area.

“We see in 91 of 182 countries that girls do not have the same rights as boys in terms of inheritance rights, access to education and equal treatment in legislation. It is not only in developing countries that there is a problem with discrimination.”

Italy ranked 15th in the index, up from 74, after being commended for adopting laws on cyberbullying and protecting children with disabilities. It was criticized for smear campaigns against organizations helping migrants.