Speaking at a meeting held in Hanoi on July 30 to launch the 2019 Global Childhood Report, she stressed that the significant reduction in child labour and a reduction in stunting have contributed greatly to making the lives of Vietnamese children today better than 20 years ago.
Save the Children is working with the Vietnamese Government to reduce the figures even further, particularly for ethnic minority children, she noted.
The launching meeting of the report was organised by UK non-governmental organisation Save the Children in collaboration with the Department of Child Affairs under the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs.
The report reveals that the number of children aged between 5 and 14 in Vietnam who join the labour force has seen a reduction of 18%, from 28% in 2000 to below 10%.
Vietnam’s score is up 67 points, from 764 in 2010 to 831 in 2019, ranked 95th out of 176 countries, one place higher than the previous year.
In its 2019 report, Save the Children presents the End of Childhood Index, which measures the extent to which children in each country experience “childhood enders” – life-changing events such as child marriage, early pregnancy, exclusion from education, sickness, malnutrition and death – on a scale of 1 to 1,000. The report finds that situations for children in 173 out of 176 countries have improved since 2000.
Of the top 10, Singapore tops the rankings, followed by eight Western European countries and the Republic of Korea.
