Cuba is Latin America’s safest country for children and adolescents

Havana, According to Save the Children’s new global report, Cuba is the country in Latin America and the Caribbean where children and young people are most likely to grow up healthy, receive education and be protected.

Cubadebate today highlights that the results of the report “Building a Better Life with Children” – published by Save the Children in its centennial year – show that at least 280 million children are more likely to grow up healthy, receive education and be protected than at any other time in the last two decades.

This annual report assesses 176 countries using international indicators on child mortality, access to education, nutrition, protection from harmful practices such as child labour, child marriage, homicide and forced displacement.

In the global ranking, the best performing country in Latin America and the Caribbean is Cuba, followed by Chile and Barbados.

The worst performing country in the region for the third consecutive year is Guatemala. It is the only country in the region that is in the last 30 in the ranking. The next lowest performing country is Honduras, which is the 40th lowest. Venezuela, Haiti and El Salvador complete the bottom of the region.

Nancy Ramírez, director of Political Incidence at Save the Children, said that in the last 20 years important progress has been made in favor of children and adolescents, however, we have violence as the main violation of their rights.

This scourge continues to be one of the main causes of death of children in Latin America and the Caribbean, where 70 small children die every day as a result of mistreatment, she warns.

“One hundred years ago, after one of the most destructive wars in human history, Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save the Children, wrote the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Today, great progress has been made, but millions of children are still being deprived of their childhood.

“Since 2000, homicide rates for children have increased eight percent in the region,” Ramírez said.

(Taken from ACN in Spanish)

Written by Radio Grito de Baire