More than half the world’s children – 1.2 billion – live in countries affected by widespread poverty, conflict and discrimination against girls, threatening their chance for a childhood. These children are excluded from learning, and denied basics like healthcare and even food. These children are stripped of their innocence and robbed of the their childhood – and the future they deserve. A new report from Save the Children, an NGO based in the UK, shows which countries are doing the best job of meeting those conditions—and which ones are falling short.
The End of Childhood Report 2018 ranks 175 countries based on a set of indicators considered to be roadblocks to a safe and healthy childhood, including poor health, malnutrition, exclusion from education, child labor, child marriage, early pregnancy, and extreme violence. In 95 of those countries, the overall situation for children improved from the previous year. But the index shows that conditions for children got worse in 40 countries, and warns that “poverty, conflict and discrimination against girls are putting more than 1.2 billion children—over half of children worldwide—at risk for an early end to their childhood.”
Here are the 10 countries where childhoods are most protected, according to the report—and the 10 countries where children are at the most risk:
The 10 best countries for a safe, healthy childhood
- Singapore
- Slovenia
- Norway
- Sweden
- Finland
- Ireland
- Netherlands
- Iceland
- Italy
- South Korea
The 10 countries where children are most at risk
- Niger
- Mali
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- South Sudan
- Somalia
- Nigeria
- Guinea
- Sierra Leone
- Democratic Republic of the Congo