(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Muscat- Apart from Egypt, Oman is the only country in the Middle East among the top 25 countries in the world on the KidsRights Index 2017, the annual global rankings which charts countries' performance records concerning children's rights.
In the overall rankings, Oman is placed 23rd, while other GCC states are ranked much lower with Qatar in the 63rd place, the UAE on 72nd, Kuwait on 88th, Bahrain on 96th and Saudi Arabia on the 144th position.
An initiative of international children's rights foundation KidsRights and Erasmus University Rotterdam, the index collects data from various reputable sources and identifies global themes and trends in the children's rights arena.
Portugal is lauded as the global frontrunner in 2017. It owes its first place to strong performances in the fields of child legislation, health and education. Notable examples of underperforming countries include the UK, which fell from 11th to the 156th place, and New Zealand (down from 45 to 158).
Interestingly, economically prosperous countries are not necessarily outperforming the rest, the report stated. 'The index does not only assess countries' commitments to children's rights in absolute terms, but also relative to the available resources. This is reflected, among other examples, by top ten rankings for poorer countries like Thailand and Tunisia, both of which perform well in cultivating an enabling environment for the rights of the child,' it stated.
'Although many poorer states deserve praise for their efforts relative to their budgets and means, it is alarming that the industrialised world is neglecting its leadership responsibilities and failing to invest in the rights of children to the best of its abilities.' The industrialised nations like the UK and New Zealand, this year both hold bottom ten positions following very poor performances in domain five, i.e. Child Rights Environment.
'The methodology for obtaining the final score in the index is such that extremely poor performances in one domain cannot be compensated by higher scores in other areas, as all children's rights are equally important.
'Extreme underperformance in one of the domains therefore creates an insurmountable bottleneck that automatically demotes the concerned country to the lower-most region of the index,' the report stated.
Marc Dullaert, founder and chairman of the KidsRights Foundation, urges all 165 countries listed in the index to treat non-discrimination as a policy priority in 2017.
The KidsRights Index is based on five domains: The right to life, health, education, protection and the enabling environment for child rights.
Domain one to four are based on the quantitative data published and regularly updated by Unicef. Domain five, the Child Rights Environment reveals the extent to which countries have operationalised the general principles of the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child.
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