Afghanistan has remained the second-worst country for children’s rights in the Kids Rights Index. The report comes a day after a child was killed by an explosive remnant of war in the northern Faryab province.
The report has measured the five domains of children’s right to life; their right to health; their right to protection; their right to education; and enabling the environment for children’s rights.
The report was published today, October 19.
The Kids Rights Index has monitored how the UN member states, who have signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child – including Afghanistan as a signatory to the convention – have performed on children’s rights for 10 years now.
Iceland has kept its place at the top of this annual index for the fifth consecutive year as the best place for children’s rights followed by Sweden and Finland.
The Kids Rights has published this year’s Kids Rights Index Report in co-operation with Erasmus University.
Globally, as the Report has found, the lives of one billion children are at stake due to climate change, and there has been no “significant progress” in the standards of children’s lives and rights across the world.
“The devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have led to the loss of up to 286,000 lives of children under the age of 5, due to severe disruptions in food and medicine deliveries, the closure of health clinics, and delays to child vaccination programs,” part of the report reads.
Quoting Marc Dullaert, KidsRights Founder and Chair, the report said “this year’s report is alarming for our current and future generations of children. There has been no significant progress in the standards of children’s lives over the last decade, and on top of that their livelihoods have been severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Pointing to the upcoming 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference or COP27 in November, Dullaert has said that decisions must be made to invest and act now to take vital action for change.
According to the report, many countries have remained in the “same general performance” as over the last ten years while the situation in the lowest-ranking countries, including Afghanistan, has declined.
Some countries, however, have made clear progress over the last decade in some specific domains measured in the report – life, health, protection, and enabling environment for children’s rights.
