War, insecurity, a lack of institutions to protect citizens and very limited access to justice in many cases pose a very serious challenge to sustainable development and to a healthy society with protected inhabitants.
The number of people fleeing war, persecution and armed conflict in general exceeded 70 million in 2018, the highest number recorded by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in almost 70 years.
But it does not stop there, also the people who are in charge, for work or for devotion, of covering the news from these parts of the world or helping these people or defending their rights are victims on many occasions. In fact, in 2019, the United Nations has recorded 357 murders and 30 forced disappearances of human rights defenders, journalists and trade unionists in 47 countries. This is totally inconceivable.
On the other hand, the births of around one in four children worldwide are never officially registered, which is a serious problem, as this deprives them of legal proof of identity, which is crucial for the protection of their own rights and for access to justice and social services. It is as if they do not exist before the institutions of their own country. It is usually from the age of 5 or 6 that they start to register and appear legally before the Administration, but until that age, in the face of any problem or need for help, they are totally unprotected.
Another major problem is the general lack of protection for children in many of the poorest countries. This is particularly serious, as families and the communities in which they live encourage children to work in order to help out financially at home. This leads to an increase in the percentage of child labour in the world, and worse, to children dropping out of school in order to work and help out at home.
The pandemic has especially exacerbated this, as it has contributed to increased poverty, so that in 2020, the year the coronavirus entered our lives, 9 million additional children were victims of child labour, because of this increased poverty in their countries, according to UNICEF and the International Labour Organisation.
In total, it is estimated that there may be more than 160 million children engaged in child labour worldwide, the highest number in 20 years.
We need to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development and in order to meet the SDGs, we need to facilitate access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels and for all citizens, no matter what country or nationality they are from.
The Worldwide Governance Indicators measure performance in the area of government effectiveness using, for example, surveys of businesses, citizens and experts around the world. The effectiveness indicator seeks to capture the quality of public services, the quality of the bureaucracy and the quality of policy formulation and implementation.
All countries are scored on a scale of 0 to 100. In sub-Saharan Africa, 28 of the 48 countries are ranked in the bottom quartile of effectiveness, along with a small number of countries in other regions. This means that they are neither safe nor efficient places to manage their citizens. The same happens for some countries in Latin America, where citizen insecurity and violence are of real concern.
People everywhere must not be afraid of any form of violence and must feel safe throughout their lives, regardless of their ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. They need to have access to comprehensive and effective healthcare, they need to have their children and their elders protected. The cost of not having this is very high and directly prevent the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
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