Protecting children is everyone’s responsibility.

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Feeling safe, nurtured and loved is a fundamental right and a developmental necessity for all children. When children aren’t safe at home, they won’t thrive. If they aren’t safe at school, they won’t learn. If they aren’t protected in their communities, they’re at risk for reversal of any developmental progress they’ve made. Keeping children safe wherever they are is critical to their physical and mental health, well-being and overall development, and it is a programmatic priority at ChildFund.

Some of the root causes of violence we address include:

  • Harmful social and gender norms.
  • Socioeconomic factors including poverty, unemployment and lack of education access.
  • Unequal power relations between children and adults.
  • Social inequality and discrimination against vulnerable and marginalized groups.
  • Lack of opportunity for children’s civic engagement.
  • Structural barriers/weak laws and policy.
  • Lack of justice and accountability for perpetrators of violence against children.
  • Inadequate support services (including social support services, child protection services and mental health support services).
  • Dysfunctional family dynamics.

With these activities, I know what to do if someone tries to do something bad to me, like telling my family members about it so they know what’s going on and they can do something to prevent anything bad from happening to me.

— Yureni, 11, Mexico

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Our Approach to Protecting Children

Our child protection-focused programs address children’s protection needs as they grow from infancy through young adulthood. Parents, caregivers, teachers and children themselves learn to question cultural norms that perpetuate, justify and normalize violence, and are encouraged to speak out against it. And communities are supported to build safe places where their children can learn and play — at home, at school, online, in the community and during humanitarian emergencies.

For more on keeping children safe online, see our Online Protection page. 

Child protection systems function best when their individual components strengthen and reinforce each other — for example, social services, child protection services, public information, policy and more.  Our interventions focus on how and where we can complement work already underway by government, institutional donors and our local partners to strengthen those systems. Collaborations include social welfare workforces and community-based child protection mechanisms, public awareness campaigns, data collection and research, advocating for improved laws and policies and investing in technology that supports child protection mechanisms.

In Sierra Leone, for instance, a village savings and loan program allows families to invest in their children's education, enabling them to afford fees, clothes and supplies, and — ultimately — eliminate child labor in the community. Learn More: How Savings Groups are Ending Child Labor in Sierra Leone

 

Tradin Organic Child Labor Project


This community-based child protection project was implemented in partnership with Tradin Organic in 57 communities in Sierra Leone, targeting cocoa farming families. Its aim was to address child labor risks, reduce harmful practices and keep children in school, while supporting families to become economically stable through village savings and loan programs.

We support our local partner organizations to build on and strengthen existing community mechanisms such as women’s groups and youth groups so that children and community members drive their own protection. We also link them with government systems and services, as well as other parts of the child protection system, so that they don’t operate in isolation but instead coordinate and work effectively together to protect children.

For instance, through awareness raising, the Hands4Good campaign reduced in-home violence in communities in Uganda by increasing families’ knowledge on what constitutes violence in the home and by improving capacities to respond to violence within the community. In the Philippines, our LEAP project helped to reduce exploitative child labor through awareness-raising, strengthened advocacy and building capacity of community, government and sugar industry stakeholders.

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When children are exposed to violence, their mental health can suffer. And for children, poor mental health disrupts their ability to learn, self-regulate and build healthy relationships. Our MHPSS strategy is designed to provide non-specialized MHPSS support services and refer to specialized mental health services so we can respond consistently to children’s mental health needs, as well as the needs of caregivers and community members.

Children and caregivers alike benefit from in-person interactions, group therapies and peer-to-peer support initiatives at school and in the community, and safe spaces — organized Child-Friendly Spaces and other spaces created within the home or school — improve their functioning, well-being, coping abilities and social behaviors while nurturing a sense of connectedness.

Feeling safe at school is imperative for children to be able to learn. Working through three local partners, Naretoi Girl Child Program, Mbirikani Child Care Program and Kuku Plains Child Care Program, ChildFund Kenya implemented a school-based protection program that sought to promote functional child protection systems and to empower and engage children in their own protection.

Learn More: Kenya Kajiado Integrated Project | Final Evaluation

For more on our school-based violence prevention programs, see our Education page.

Violence is very often gendered. Our approach to violence prevention focuses on addressing and transforming social norms on gender, including challenging the social constructs of masculinity and the traditional gender roles within families, addressing harmful gender norms like early marriage, as well as reducing community tolerance of gender-based violence (GBV), including intimate partner violence and female genital mutilation (FGM). In Kenya, the Jukumu Letu program reduced the incidence of FGM through child and youth participation and improving child protection mechanisms in communities.

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Our child protection and inclusive development work supports children and young people to learn to use their voices to enhance their own protection. Children’s experiences and perspectives inspire adults to understand that change is possible and turn hope into action. Our Child Protection in Emergencies (CPiE) project in Ethiopia works directly with communities to prevent child trafficking and support survivors to restore their lives.  Children, youth and community members come together to address trafficking as well as early marriage, drug abuse, child labor and all other forms of exploitation and violence.  

Learn More: Youth Lead the Fight Against Child Trafficking 

Our work in humanitarian situations includes preventing and responding to abuse, neglect, exploitation and other forms of violence in protracted situations. After a disaster or amid conflict, migration or other crises, children need tangible relief items, but just as importantly, they need psychological and emotional support.

Learn more about our work with children in crisis.

ChildFund advocates for change of laws and policies that allow violence to occur. In the U.S. in 2017, we co-created the Ending Violence Against Children Taskforce, a group of international development organizations, to advocate with the U.S. government to prioritize ending violence against children. As a direct result, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Ending Violence Against Children Resolution in 2020, demonstrating Congress’ acknowledgment of the importance of preventing, addressing and ending violence against children worldwide.

Project Spotlight: Jukumu Letu Child Protection Project

Jukumu Letu, which means “Our Responsibility,” works to decrease the number of girls affected by harmful cultural practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM) by building the community’s child protection capacity and increasing children and youth’s participation in their own protection. At the end of the project, there was a considerable change in the community perception of FGM — 97% of endline survey respondents affirmed that most community members will accept alternative rites of passage for girls instead of FGM compared to 16% previously, almost entirely due to awareness raising and education.

Meet Our Experts

Charles Sevume

Charles Sevume

Director 1, Child Protection, Gender and Social Inclusion

Charles Sevume provides strategic vision and direction for ChildFund's child protection and inclusive development programs. Charles leads the development of program policies, strategies and guidance for the implementation of the child protection and inclusive development-related goals and targets in ChildFund's Growing Connections strategy.

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Khadiga Alsharif

Khadiga Alsharif

Advisor II, Child Protection

Khadiga Alsharif is a community psychologist with a Master of Arts in Community Psychology and over 13 years of experience in child protection and mental health support. She has contributed to organizations like UNICEF and WFP. Currently, she serves as Advisor II in Child Protection at ChildFund, where she oversees community-based child protection and MHPSS programs across the country offices. Khadiga focuses on developing and executing grant proposals, building organizational strategies and partnerships, and advancing research and policy to support ChildFund’s leadership in child protection and mental health. Her work addresses violence against children and emphasizes trauma-informed approaches. She is committed to a strong sense of community, teamwork, psychological safety, innovation and child well-being.

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