SA is failing its children, global study shows

South Africa has come in at 109, out of 163 countries, in a 2016 global ranking of children’s rights by KidsRightsIndex.

Kampala - South Africa has come in at 109, out of 163 countries, in a 2016 global ranking of children’s rights which was released on Monday by KidsRightsIndex.

“South Africa needs to do more to provide the necessary conditions to realise children’s rights,” said KidsRights, an international, non-governmental organisation which promotes and advocates for the well-being of very vulnerable children across the world.

“The KidsRights Index releases data every year, in collaboration with Holland’s Erasmus University, on the treatment of children globally and specifically focuses on countries whose treatment of children has either improved, deteriorated or stayed much the same,” KidsRights press officer Jordi Bouman told the African News Agency (ANA) during an interview from Amsterdam on Monday morning.

“South Africa is not mentioned in Monday’s press release because we focused on those countries that presented themselves before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2015,” KidsRights Programme Manager Ellen Vroonhof told ANA.

“However, in September 2016 the committee will review South Africa again and new data will become available,” said Vroonhof who provided ANA with a separate 2016 KidsRights data sheet on South Africa.

“The current data on South Africa relates primarily to the concluding observations in 2000 by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC),” said Vroonhof.

Based on the UN CRC 2000 evaluation, KidsRights found that legislation in South Africa in terms of non-discrimination was in place. Nonetheless, in practice, there were insufficient guarantees.

“The efforts made by South Africa to promote respect for the views of the child, have been noted. However, there are certain limits to the full implementation of children’s right to be heard,” the KidsRights Index showed.

The Index further showed that the children’s budget project of South Africa rated positively. However, concerns remained at the insufficient efforts made to ensure adequate distribution of resources.

South Africa has established a National Programme of Action Steering committee, which comprises representatives from various ministries and agencies involved in the promotion of the rights of children, as well as representatives of civil society.

In Monday’s press release KidsRights urged all 163 countries analysed in the Index to increase efforts to combat discrimination against minority groups of children and youth especially.

This year’s list underlines that, worldwide, countries are falling short on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“Vulnerable and marginalised children, including refugee children, migrant children, disabled children, street children and indigenous children, are still widely discriminated against,” said KidsRights.

Another area in need of improvement is the much needed cooperation between the state and civil society, which is still underdeveloped in various countries.

KidsRights is especially alarmed by the increased threats posed to the safety of children’s rights defenders, journalists and civil society activists.

In too many countries such practitioners are being harassed, threatened, abused or jailed. Moreover, many countries fail in facilitating true child participation.

“Not a single one of the 163 countries analysed in the Index achieved the highest possible score on child participation,” said KidsRights founder and chairman Marc Dullaert.

This means that the views of the 2.2 billion children on this planet are not being heard adequately regarding issues that affect them directly.

According to the 2016 index Norway is number one for the second year in a row. Runners up in 2016’s top ten are Portugal, Iceland, Spain, Switzerland, Slovakia, Ireland, France, Finland and Tunisia.

Switzerland and Finland have replaced the Netherlands (now 13th) and Sweden (now 14th) respectively in the top 10.

Worst performing countries overall in this year’s Index are Guinea, Angola, Lesotho, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Papua New Guinea, Chad, Afghanistan, Central African Republic and Vanuatu.

Mexico improved by rising from 102 to 37 as did Columbia which came in at 60 after previously being ranked 123 on the Index.

Conversely, Brazil fell from 43 on the list to 107, the United Arab Emirates from 39 to 78, and the Dominican Republic from 68 to 96. Iraq went from bad to worse coming in at 149 from its last assessment at number 149.

Interestingly, economically better performing countries are not necessarily doing a better job when it comes to safeguarding the rights of children,” said KidsRights.

Italy (81st), Canada (72nd) and Luxembourg (56th), for example,were urged to improve the infrastructures they have built for children’s rights.

KidsRights said these wealthy countries were in a position to invest in children’s rights, but fail to do so sufficiently.

ANA