[PDF-youth] Global Childhood Report 2019 + Analysis

Wed May 29 21:59:41 MDT 2019

Thanks for this Solo

From: PDF-youth [mailto:pdf-youth-bounces at lists.pacificdisability.org] On
Behalf Of Soloveni Vitoso
Sent: Thursday, 30 May 2019 8:42 AM
To: pdf-youth at lists.pacificdisability.org
Subject: [PDF-youth] Global Childhood Report 2019 + Analysis

Direct Link to Full 32-Page 2019 Save the Children Global Childhood Report
SUMMARY:

 <https://www.savethechildren.net/sites/default/files/CH1338551.pdf>
https://www.savethechildren.net/sites/default/files/CH1338551.pdf

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/28/us-ranks-with-china-in-child-well-being
-save-the-children-end-of-childhood-report-2019/

The Kids Aren't Alright

In an era of great power competition, China and Russia are closing the gap
with the United States when it comes to child welfare.

A teacher surrounded by children draws a smiley face on a fruit to welcome
World Smile Day at a kindergarten in Handan, China, on May 8. Hao
Qunying/VCG/Getty Images 

By  <https://foreignpolicy.com/author/amy-mackinnon/> Amy Mackinnon &
<https://foreignpolicy.com/author/c-k-hickey/> C.K. Hickey - | May 28, 2019

As Washington strives to maintain an edge in defense and technology in an
era of renewed great power rivalry, there is one area in which Russia and
China are rapidly closing the gap with the United States: the well-being of
children. 

According to a new report published Tuesday by the international nonprofit
Save the Children, the United States is now on a par with China and ranks
just above Russia in their End of Childhood Index, which assesses the number
of kids impacted by poverty, violence, premature marriage, and pregnancy
around the world.

In the three years that Save the Children has compiled its annual Global
Childhood Report, China has moved up from
<https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/ending-violence-childhoo
d-global-report-2017> 41st to 36th in terms of best countries for children,
while the United States has remained static at 36th, tying with China and
coming in just behind Kuwait and Belarus. 

Singapore tops the list, while South Korea and European nations make up the
rest of the top 10.

The report looks at eight factors that can derail childhood and finds that
while the United States fares better than China when it comes to the
percentage of children in school, malnutrition, and child mortality rates,
the United States has significantly higher rates of teen pregnancy, child
marriage, and child homicide. 

For this year's report, Save the Children looked back to compare how
countries fare with these issues compared to in 2000 and found dramatic
improvements worldwide. All but three of the 176 countries for which data
was available showed progress in child well-being, and improvements were
most pronounced in developing nations. 

While the United States has made progress too-with teen births down 56
percent and a two-thirds reduction in the number of kids missing out on
school compared to 2000-Russia and China are making progress faster. 

Since 2000, the United States has improved by 32 points in the End of
Childhood Index, while Russia and China have improved by 56 and 80 points,
respectively, out of 1,000 possible points.

"While we're getting better, the rest of the world is getting better
faster," said Carolyn Miles, the president and CEO of Save the Children.

While the United States is one of the wealthiest, most developed countries
in the world, it lags behind its Western European counterparts when it comes
to child welfare. That is especially acute in rural America, where almost
one in four children grow up in poverty, according to Save the Children.

John Farden, an associate vice president at Save the Children, said that
poverty rates for children in rural areas are consistently higher than in
urban areas.

Last year, as a complement to their Global Childhood Report, the
organization published a deep dive on children in
<https://www.savethechildren.org/us/about-us/resource-library/end-of-childho
od> rural America, which found that while urban areas held the highest
number of children living in poverty, the proportion of children in poverty
was higher in rural areas.

"Not only were poverty rates consistently higher but also other things that
we think of as childhood enders such as child mortality, ability to go onto
higher education, food insecurity. All of those indicators were
significantly higher for rural children," Farden said. 

Overall, however, the report finds much cause for celebration. In the space
of a single generation, significant improvements have been made, and
children around the world are now safer and healthier than they have ever
been. Compared to the year 2000, there are 115 million fewer children out of
school, there are 94 million fewer child laborers, and 49 million fewer
children have stunted growth because of malnutrition.

Save the Children named 10 factors that have helped this leap, including the
empowerment of women and girls, new technologies, and international support.

Speaking with journalists, Miles said that political commitment by national
governments was a critical factor in determining a country's progress in
caring for its kids. She used the example of Ethiopia, which made some of
the most pronounced improvements over the past 18 years. The country has
received worldwide recognition for efforts to save the lives of newborn
babies, and the number of children dying has been cut by half since 2000.
Commitments by national and local governments and investments in nutrition
programs has led to 1.3 million fewer children having their physical and
mental development stunted by poor nutrition.

While progress has been made across the board in Ethiopia, the report notes
that poorer children are not benefiting as much as those from wealthier
families, widening the gap between rich and poor children.

Political will, or a lack thereof, could also explain sluggish progress in
the United States. 

Farden of Save the Children pointed to the way in which the U.S. war on
poverty, a legislative push begun in the 1964 by President Lyndon B.
Johnson, affected poverty rates among children and seniors.

Between 1966 and 2012 the number of seniors living in poverty
<https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/01/08/elderly-among-bigges
t-winners-in-the-war-on-poverty> dropped by two-thirds to 9.1 percent,
whereas child poverty rates show less improvement and today nearly one in
five children in the United States is still
<https://www.childrensdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Child-Poverty-i
n-America-2017-National-Fact-Sheet.pdf> estimated to live in poverty. 

"Kids don't vote. There's definitely that difference in political power,"
Miles said. 

In only three countries were children found to be worse off when compared to
2000: Syria, Venezuela, and Trinidad and Tobago, where malnutrition has
caused the number of children with stunted growth to double. 

Venezuela, rocked by years of political and economic strife, has seen the
number of children murdered skyrocket by 60 percent, and the number of
children who do not live to see their fifth birthday has risen by 40
percent. 

Unsurprisingly Syria fell furthest in the rankings as more than eight years
of war has pulled childhoods apart at the seams, uprooting children from
their homes and school. Child marriage and forced labor are also on the rise
among Syrian refugee children. 

Of the eight so-called "childhood enders" examined by Save the Children, the
only one in which there was no improvement was the number of children
displaced around the world, which has skyrocketed since 2000. 

By the end of 2017, a record 68.5 million people around the world were
displaced, including 31 million children. 

_________________________________________________

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