Netherlands falls out of top 10 countries with best children's rights

The Netherlands is no longer one of the top ten countries with the best children's rights in the world. The country dropped from 2nd place to 13th place in the annual rankings of international children's rights organization KidsRights, ANP reports.

The drop in 2016's rankings can mainly be attributed to the Netherlands' assessment by the United Nations' children's rights committee last year, in which our country performed more poorly in two of the seven indicators - enabling legislation and available budget.

"KidsRights is also concerned about children in the Netherlands living in poverty and cuts that also affect families living on a minimum income", the organization writes in the rankings, which was published on Monday. "Due to the recent decentralization of youth care in the Netherlands, the supply and budget differ for each municipality, which means that children in the Netherlands may have unequal access to youth care."

The annual ranking shows how children's rights rare respected in countries world wide and how these countries are working towards the improvement of these rights. A total of 163 countries are listed.

Norway is the number one country for children's rights for the second year in a row. The top 10 also includes Switzerland, Finland, Portugal, Ireland, Iceland and Slovakia. Papua New Guinea, Chad and Afghanistan are at the bottom of the list.