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Worst place for children

LONDON: A new report issued by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) regards Britain as the worst place among all developed countries for a child to grow up. UNICEF says Britain has the unhappiest, poorest, unhealthiest and most neglected children of the world's 21 richest nations, ranking at the bottom of 40 different indicators for child welfare, Sky news reported on Wednesday. According to the UNICEF report titled, ``Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries'', Britain lags behind industrialised countries in terms of relative poverty, deprivation, the quality of children's relationship with their parents and peers, child health and safety, behaviour and risk-taking and young people's own sense of well-being. Despite its higher rank for educational well-being, Britain still stayed at the bottom third for each of the other measures, earning it the bottom place among the 21 countries. North European countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Finland ranked highest in child welfare, dominating the top half of the league table. This is UNICEF's first study of child welfare in the developed world. It deals a heavy blow to the British Government which has made as its major goal to reduce child poverty by half by 2010. — Xinhua

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