Kerala topped the National Child Rights Index released by HAQ-Centre for Child Rights

A report on child rights, India's Child Rights Index, a first-of-its-kind report was released on 9 November 2011 by the HAQ-Centre for Child Rights.

Kerala topped the national child rights index, followed by Karnataka. Arunachal Pradesh was found to be the worst performer in protecting the rights of children. The rankings of few other states are as follows:

Maharashtra (3), Tamil Nadu (4) and Andhra Pradesh (5), Gujarat (6), Rajasthan (7). Madhya Pradesh ranked 11, Bihar (16), Uttar Pradesh (18) and Chhattisgarh (19). child rights issues such as sex ratio, early childhood care, child marriage, child labour, education, health, crime against and by children were taken into consideration while preparing the report.

Details of State Performance

Though Kerala topped the list, its child marriage indicator is the lowest, and the State's performance is far from satisfactory in early childhood care and crimes against children.

The report pointed out that economic growth did not necessarily improve the wellbeing of children. Kerala, which ranked first in the national child rights, stands ninth in its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) status, whereas Maharashtra, which ranks first in the GDP, stands third in child rights. Maharashtra does badly in sex ratio and child marriage. Arunachal Pradesh performed fairly well in sex ratio, child marriage and early childhood care.
With the second highest GDP in the country, Uttar Pradesh ranked 18th in child rights and 27th in the provision of health care, next only to Jharkhand. Mizoram performed badly in controlling child labour, while crimes against children were found to be the highest in Nagaland (in proportion to the number of children), and Manipur is the worst performer in crimes by children and Bihar is the best.

Jharkhand was found to be the only State whose economic status matched its child rights rank — both standing at 17.

Four of the five best performing States — Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh are from the southern region. Maharashtra alone is from the west. On the other hand, all the worst performing States are in the Northeast- Sikkim, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. In fact, of the five States falling in the not-so-well performing States category, Tripura, Assam and Mizoram are also from the Northeast.

The Child Rights Index stated that although in absolute numbers, most of the child victims of select crimes are in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, the ratio of child victims to overall child population is higher in the northeastern states of Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim. The worst performers - Nagaland, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Manipur - also have the lowest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the country.

The index revealed that the states that have higher incidences of crimes being committed by children also are among the worst performers when it comes to child labour. Mizoram, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Nagaland - all have very high percentages of children working as labourers. Mizoram is the worst performer being at the bottom of the list at 29.

Performance of the National Capital

New Delhi ranked 12 in the country when it comes to ensuring well-being of children. Delhi's lead in providing education to children is offset by its poor pupil-teacher ratio of 1:100. As far as the incidence of crime against children and crimes by children is concerned, Delhi again ranked 19th. It ranked 17 on the index which takes into account the victims of crimes. Delhi ranks second in the index on child labour. While the index showed Delhi on the top of the list in two indicators, namely education and birth registrations, it tumbles to the bottom of the list with a rank of 27 when it comes to early childhood care. The city fares poorly ranking 24 in the index for sex ratio.

About India's Child Rights Index

Like the Human Development Index, education index, hunger index and health index now, the Child Rights Index attempts assess how different states and union territories fare in providing child friendly policies and where they stand in terms of securing the rights of children.

In the Child Rights Index, the states have been ranked on 10 major indicators- birth registration, sex ratio, early childhood care, child marriage, child labour, education, health, incidence of crime against children, victims of crime against children and crimes by children. The index looked into all aspects of child wellbeing in all sectors and indicators for realisation of child rights as a whole.

The ranking of states was not done on the basis of absolute numbers, but in proportion to the number of children in the states. So, though a state may perform well in absolute numbers, it figured low on the index.
The index showed that the so-called world-class city needed to do much more to secure the rights of its children.

The index pointed out the states that lag behind in child rights' indicators. It will help ascertain areas of intervention, issues as well as geographical regions that need attention in the coming five-year plan.