(independent) -- Serious concerns have been raised about structural discrimination in the UK, including Muslim children facing increased discrimination following recent anti-terrorism measures, and a rise in discrimination against gypsy and refugee children in recent years.
The UK now ranks among the bottom 10 global performers in the arena of improving rights of the child, after it achieved the lowest-possible score across all six available indicators in the domain of Child Rights Environment (CRE), according to the KidsRights Index 2017.
The Index, which collects data from Unicef and the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to identify global trends in the arena of children’s rights protection, rates the extent to which a country has implemented the general principles of the CRC and to which there is a basic infrastructure for making and implementing children’s rights policies. Portugal is this year’s global frontrunner.
The Index methodology is such that extremely poor performances in one domain cannot be compensated by higher scores in other areas, as all children’s rights are deemed to be equally important.
In light of the findings, Lord Philip Hunt, shadow deputy leader of the House of Lords and shadow health spokesperson, accused the Government of “inactivity” and “inadequate service provision”, urging it to do more to protect the rights of the child.