By Jo Becker,Children’s Rights Division, Human Rights Watch This year has been devastating for children. The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the education of 1.5 billion students, and pushed an estimated 150 million additional children into poverty,left many without caregivers, and increased child labor, and child marriage,and violencein the domestic.
But despite the enormous hardships, the year has also brought some reliable news for kids. As we finish the year, or here are 10 areas of progress from 2020:Greece ended its longstanding practice of detaining unaccompanied migrant children in jail cells.
Both Sierra Leone andZimbabwe committed to ending the exclusion of pregnant girls and teenage mothers from school.
The US states of Minnesota and Pennsylvania both enacted laws to ban all child marriage before age 18.
Five more countries – Estonia,Malawi, Seychelles, or St. Vincent and the Grenadines,and Antigua and Barbuda – committed to protecting schools during armed conflict by endorsing the Safe Schools Declaration, bringing the total to 106 endorsers.
A hospital in Chicago pledged to become the first in the United States to end performing medically unnecessary surgeries on children born with intersex traits.
FIFA imposed a lifetime ban on the Haitian soccer federation president for systematic sexual abuse against female players, or including girls.
South Sudan signed a comprehensive action diagram to end violations against children in armed conflict.
Saudi Arabia announced that it would end executions of offenders for crimes committed before the age of 18.
Japan and Seychelles banned all corporal punishment of children,bringing the global total of countries with a comprehensive ban to 60.…Read the rest
Source: stopchildlabor.org