The Netherlands has risen one place to fifth in the annual KidsRights index, drawn up by global NGO Kids Rights Foundation which monitors how children’s rights are being respected and improved.

The coronavirus pandemic has had a ‘devastating impact’ on children worldwide, the Netherlands-based foundation says. ‘With the ongoing global pandemic, we had to address the devastating impacts and outcomes of Covid-19, and it has unfortunately exceeded our predictions at the outset last year,’ founder and chairman Marc Dullaert said.

The report states that schools for more than 168 million children have been closed for almost a full year and cites the negative example of the Netherlands, where, it says the government closed schools in December to encourage parents to stay at home.

Dutch secondary schools were allowed to reopen fully from Monday and must be fully open from June 7. The Dutch government has allocated an extra €6bn to primary and secondary schools to help them catch up after the closure.

The report also warns about the impact of coronavirus on mental and physical health.

‘Research on the Netherlands too implies that child abuse intensified during the first lockdown in the country in spring 2020, and that the number of victims of emotional neglect (including neglect of education and the witnessing of domestic violence) went up significantly,’ the report said.