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 comprises 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, a total of 182 countries.

In the KidsRights Index 2020, Iceland ranks first as the country where children’s rights are best guaranteed, followed by Switzerland and Finland. Countries receive scores in five areas, including ‘education’, ‘protection’ and ‘enabling environment for child rights’. The performance in the latter category is based on the Concluding Observations adopted by The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Chad, Afghanistan and Sierra Leone are at the bottom of the 2020 Index. There are also major concerns about the impact of persistent instability in countries such as Syria and Venezuela regarding the well-being of children. That Syria has made the effort to appear in front of the CRC is notable nevertheless. Read more on the release of the KidsRights Index 2020 in the press release linked below.

The KidsRights Index exists of 5 domains:

Right to Life Right to Health Right to Education Right to Protection Enabling Environment for Child Rights

A country’s total score on the KidsRights Index has been calculated as the geometric average of the scores of the five domains. Each domain has the same weight. The scores for each domain are calculated as the average value of the indicators. To review the score for each domain per country, visit the table below.

The index is a ranked country list, with colour-coding indicating relevant clusters of rankings. There are five different clusters which display a more or less similar performance level, as each cluster concerns countries for which the scores belong to the same distribution. Within a cluster the scores of countries are thus more similar then across clusters. The clusters are expressed in coloured world maps. For more information, visit the methodology or FAQ.

Please view the map above or the table below to see the scores for each country.