How the U.S. ranks on global "End of Childhood Index"
On this International Children's Day, the nonprofit group Save the Children is releasing a new report that underlines the stark challenges and dangers facing kids around the world. The "End of Childhood Index" evaluates countries for a number of serious events that threaten children, including food insecurity, infant mortality, violence, teen pregnancy and lack of education.
Among the findings, the U.S. ranks 36th out of 172 countries, far down the list of industrialized nations. Norway, Slovenia, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden top the list.
"I think the U.S., we have made progress in things like high school graduation rates and teen pregnancy, but if you look at the rest of the world, we haven't made the progress that everybody else has made. We've got to invest more," Save the Children president and CEO Carolyn Miles said Thursday on "CBS This Morning."
Beyond money, Dr. Jill Biden, the nonprofit's board chair and wife of former Vice President Joe Biden, said we need to get "everyone" involved.
"We would get parents involved and corporations involved and NGOs [non-governmental organizations] involved. I think everybody has a stake in improving on this problem, and we've got to start working on it," Biden said.
According the Save the Children, within the U.S., the childhood of kids from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont and Iowa are the least threatened. On the other hand, children from Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Georgia are more likely to experience less secure or less healthy childhoods.
It's important for Save the Children to know this, Miles said, because "the kind of childhood that you have today is going to determine the kind of world that we have in 15 years."
"So looking at those 'enders' of childhood — which, again, the disparities are all across the board in terms of things like violence against children, child marriage, teen pregnancy, those are the things that affect children all over the world — and what we have to do is actually go after those kids who are most losing out on childhood and bring them to the front of the line," Miles said.
Read more about the global findings and the U.S. findings.
