Disrupted global supply chain security and skyrocketing food and energy prices causing a steep cost-of-living crisis - the war in Ukraine is having a profound and significant impact on children.
This is just one of the finding of the KidsRights Index Report 2023, the annual review of the global state of children's rights.
The KidsRights Index Report 2023 further shows that, as a result of growing poverty due partly to the war in Ukraine, under-5 mortality rates have risen in several countries and rates of child labour have doubled or even tripled.
The Report also reveals the devastating impact of climate change on children's rights, noting that children living in Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Indonesia, India, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Thailand and Vietnam face particularly high exposure to climate hazards, shocks and stresses.
It further reveals negative developments in relation to health for children across the world caused by disruptions to immunisation programmes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Report notes that 67 milliion children missed out on routine immunisations between 2019 and 2021.
The KidsRights Index is an initiative of the KidsRights Foundation, in cooperation with the International Institute of Social Studies and Erasmus School of Economics of Erasmus Univesity Rotterdam. Academic lead at ISS is Professor Karin Arts.
It is the annual global index which ranks how countries adhere to and are equipped to improve children’s rights. It comprises a ranking for all UN member states that have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and for which sufficient data is available, a total of 182 countries.
- More information
Professor Karin Arts is Professor of International Law and Development at ISS and is involved in the KidsRights Index since it was launched in November 2013, in the Peace Palace in The Hague. From the very start she is the team of academics that is responsible for the KidsRights Index which is the only annual comprehensive index of its kind in the world. It systematically measures how different states are shaping up in the main domains of children’s lives (including life, health, education, protection and participation) and whether they have what is needed – in governance, legislation, budget, data and collaboration with civil society – to fulfil their child rights obligations.
- Related links
- A decade of monitoring children's rights
KidsRights Index