The Netherlands went from second place to 13th place in the latest worldwide ranking of attitudes towards the rights of children, compared to 2015.

The NOS reports that the significant decline is due to a more negative rating by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The Netherlands scored worse on two points: the budget that’s available for protecting children’s rights and laws that have changed since last year.

Dutch budget cuts

The poor performance in this year’s ranking also reflects other concerns, according to Karin Arts from the Erasmus School of Economics that participated in the study.

She told the NOS that challenges in the Netherlands include budget cuts for families living on minimum wage, along with the decentralisation of youth care that potentially prevents equal access to all.

Norway remains in the lead

Norway is in first place the second year in a row. Mexico (37th), Jamaica (51st) and Colombia get an honourable mention because they increased their ranking significantly over last year.

Interestingly, affluent countries do not necessarily score well automatically, for example Italy (81) and Canada (72).

The KidsRights Index tracks five areas to determine a country’s score:
› Right to Life
› Right to Health
› Right to Education
› Right to Protection
› Enabling Environment for Child Rights

The KidsRights Index is an initiative of the KidsRights Foundation, in cooperation with Erasmus University Rotterdam: Erasmus School of Economics and the International Institute of Social Studies.

It’s 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, for a total of 163 countries.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) is ratified by all of the world’s nations except for the United States. The first KidsRights Index was published in 2013.

KidsRights Index Top 15

1) Norway
2) Portugal
3) Iceland
4) Spain
5) Switzerland
6) Slovakia
7) Ireland
8) France
9) Finland
10) Tunisia 
11) United Kingdom
12) Germany    
13) The Netherlands
14) Sweden
15) Romania