New York, 1 June - Slovenia and Norway have been declared the best countries for children to live in in a report by the international charity Save the Children, assessing the heath and well-being of children around the world.

Slovenia and Norway top the list of 172 countries and are followed by Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden in the End of Childhood index, which takes into account children's diet, access to education, child mortality, child weddings, child labour, adolescent pregnancy and regional conflicts.

The top ten countries in the report are all from Europe, save South Korea, which is ranked 10th together with Germany, Belgium and Cyprus. At the bottom of the list are countries from Africa, with Niger labelled the worst country for children.

The report warned of at least 700 million children around the world, whose childhood ends prematurely, either because of health issues, armed conflicts, violence, child weddings, early pregnancy, malnutrition, exclusion from the education system and child labour.

The charity calls on countries to act against discriminatory policies and traditions and invest in public services to attain the goals of global development set down in the UN in 2015.