ChildFund Influences Decision Makers
At ChildFund, we advocate to end violence against children. We combine our programs with efforts to encourage local and national leaders to prioritize the protection and well-being of children and youth.
ChildFund’s Advocacy Focus: Ending All Forms of Violence Against Children
More than half the world’s children, up to 1 billion, endure violence every year. Violence comes in many forms — including abuse, neglect and exploitation — and can be physical, sexual or emotional. ChildFund is recognized as a leader in the fight against violence towards children. Learn more about our child protection efforts.
Our programs address a wide range of child protection issues, including combating the harmful practices of child labor; unnecessary institutionalization; violence in schools, homes and communities; corporal punishment; child marriage; and lack of birth registration, among others. Violence against children not only harms children, but it also undermines progress in other areas, including health, education and economic livelihoods.
We Advocate at All Levels — from Local to Global
ChildFund conducts advocacy through our national offices in the countries where we work, our local partner organizations and our Washington, D.C. office.
Ending violence against children is central to ChildFund’s advocacy at every level — from raising awareness with children, families and communities to influencing policy at all levels of government.
ChildFund and our local partner organizations educate families and communities about ways to prevent violence against children and advocate for social norm changes like ending corporal punishment and early marriage.
In addition to advocating for social norm changes, ChildFund works with community members to raise their concerns to local and state-level officials.
ChildFund works with communities to identify child protection risks and other threats to children’s well-being. Using what we learn from our work with children and families, ChildFund advocates with national governments to create, implement and fund policies that address relevant child protection concerns.
Since U.S. policies and funding have far-reaching effects, ChildFund works with the U.S. government to ensure that its foreign assistance policies are effective and appropriately address child protection risks.
ChildFund contributes to global advocacy efforts alongside fellow members of ChildFund Alliance, a global network of child-focused development organizations.
Working with Decision Makers around the World
Building Strong Beginnings in Senegal
Fighting Corporal Punishment in Timor-Leste
Speaking Up for Child Protection in Uganda
Working with the United States Government
ChildFund works with the U.S. government to ensure that our foreign policy efforts prioritize the needs of children and youth.
The U.S. government’s Action Plan for Children in Adversity (APCA) seeks “to achieve a world in which all children grow up within protective family care and free from deprivation, exploitation and danger.” To achieve this, APCA has three principal objectives: Build strong beginnings (addressing the physical and developmental needs of children under 5), put family care first (enable families to care for their children and prevent unnecessary separation), and protect children (working with national governments to protect children from violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect). The APCA outlines a whole-of-government approach to coordinate efforts, build an evidence base for child protection programming, and strengthen holistic and integrated models to promote the best interests of the child.
ChildFund, as an early supporter of APCA, continues to advise and collaborate with the government on next steps for APCA, which is set to expire in 2017. ChildFund is a member of the Children in Adversity Policy Partnership (CAPP) coalition, through which it coordinates its support of APCA, serving on CAPP’s steering committee and working with partner organizations to set CAPP’s agenda.
Although we know what interventions are most successful in preventing unnecessary maternal and child deaths, nearly 830 mothers and 16,000 children around the world die every day. The bipartisan Reach Every Mother and Child (REACH) Act aims to end preventable child and maternal deaths by the year 2035. The bill calls for a coordinated U.S. government strategy to end preventable maternal, newborn, and child deaths. This includes setting ambitious targets to be set, tracked, and annually reported on; focusing on the poorest and most vulnerable populations; improving coordination among U.S. government agencies; engaging innovative, public-private financing mechanisms to complement U.S. bilateral investments; and accelerating partner country progress in addressing maternal, newborn and child health.
WHAT'S NEW
Ending Violence Against Children Taskforce's COVID-19 Child Protection Policy Recommendations
As a leading member of the Ending Violence Against Children Taskforce, which consists of six child-focused organizations dedicated to elevating, intensifying and improving U.S. government commitments on the prevention of and response to violence against children, ChildFund International co-wrote a set of COVID-19 policy recommendations, which highlight the important child protection risks facing children as a result of COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic has already had an untold toll on children all over the world. Beyond the immediate health risks posed by the virus, government-imposed restrictions and efforts to prevent COVID-19's spread have forced most schools to close and have had a devastating impact on many families' economic wellbeing, upending the lives of vulnerable children. This new reality is causing fear, stress and anxiety across families, increasing children's risk of exposure to domestic violence and neglect from caregivers. Therefore, as part of our response to the crisis, ChildFund International has prioritized ensuring children and families have access to the food and basic essentials they need and keeping children safe from violence.
These priorities extend to our advocacy work. In our policy recommendations, we call on the U.S. government to place children's protection from violence at the center of its global response, because we believe that the government has a critical role to play in ensuring that children are protected and families receive the support they need to weather this crisis. By working together, we will be better able to protect children from both the immediate and longer-term impacts of COVID-19 and ensure that we do not lose ground in our fight to end violence against children.
ChildFund Alliance Launches First-Ever Advocacy Report: Building Momentum
As the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, (CRC), 2019 marks a critical milestone in the global movement to address and prevent violence against children. To measure the world's progress on the issue, the United Nations reviewed the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 16.2, which calls for the end of all violence, abuse and exploitation of children, at this year's High-level Political Forum (HLPF), held July 9th to July 18th.
On July 10, the ChildFund Alliance Secretariat launched its new report, Building Momentum: A call for action to end violence against children, at a side event at the HLPF. In addition to highlighting important initiatives led by ChildFund International and its Alliance partners, Building Momentum urges governments to take substantive actions to address violence against children, including developing and implementing policies to address gaps in child protection systems, ensuring children's voices are included in the development of these policies, increasing budget allocations towards ending violence, adopting the INSPIRE strategies, and accurately reporting on their nations' progress towards achieving SDG target 16.2.
Emphasizing Children’s Well-being in Response to Newly Proposed Immigration Policies
Violence and poverty in many countries in Latin America are forcing thousands of children and families to make the dangerous journey to seek asylum in the United States. During this process, many children have become separated from their families.
ChildFund International has endorsed the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action’s list of recommendations for the reunification of separated children with their families. This list urges that the best interests of children be at the forefront of the reunification and legal process, advocates for children and their families to receive adequate mental health support and calls for the end of family detention.
In November and December of 2018, ChildFund submitted public comments to the U.S. Government in response to proposed changes to the terms of the Flores Settlement Agreement, which dictates the minimum care standards U.S. immigration authorities must adhere to in regards to children in their custody and to the Public Charge test, which helps determine whether an immigrant is eligible to receive a Green Card. Both comments focused on the negative effects that the proposed policy changes could have on children’s well-being and development.
50 CEOs sign letter to Secretary Tillerson on Women and Girls’ Empowerment
ChildFund is proud to stand with almost 50 CEOs and corporate leaders on a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, calling on him to make women and girls’ empowerment a central tenet of U.S. foreign policy and development assistance. The letter, which was sent on September 5th, emphasizes the economic benefits of investing in and increasing opportunities for women and girls, and calls on Secretary Tillerson to appoint high-level leadership on these critical issues. ChildFund is especially proud to stand by some of our most strategic partners, TOMS and P&G, in supporting this letter. ChildFund knows firsthand how girls’ education and empowerment transforms impoverished communities. The message is clear: When women and girls thrive, everyone wins.
THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
A new priority infuses the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations in September 2015: Violence against children has taken a prominent place among the world’s next set of goals for addressing extreme poverty until 2030.
ChildFund, its fellow members of ChildFund Alliance and like-minded organizations worldwide celebrated the inclusion of violence against children as a priority as a great first step. But for the world to achieve a future in which children are free from violence and exploitation, we must step forward together — civil society, governments, communities, families and especially children — toward that future.
ChildFund remains committed to calling on world leaders to transform the high-level, political commitment embodied in the SDGs into real investments in protecting children around the globe: stronger laws and policies and well-supported systems and services that are funded and targeted.
When they do, communities will be better able to do the work of transforming themselves into environments with children’s well-being at heart.
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Sustainable Development Goals