UNICEF Child protection 2018-2021

Over 1 billion children experience violence every year. UNICEF identifies the consequences of Child Protection violations as catastrophic profound, enduring and often deadly for children and with economic costs of violence against children estimated at $7 trillion per year. Across 126 countries, close to 4.2 million children who had experienced violence were reached by UNICEF with direct service support (including health, social work, justice and law enforcement services). This is a 54 per cent increase compared with 2019. UNICEF-supported parenting programmes reached more than 2.6 million parents and caregivers across 87 countries. This is a 14 per cent increase compared with 2019. Further, in an attempt to share online resources with parents, UNICEF supported the Parenting for Lifelong Health partnership, reaching 134 million families globally in 2020. This includes at least 57.9 million people reached through a UNICEF supported digital communication initiative. UNICEF provided protective services to millions of children in 145 countries affected by armed conflict, natural disasters and public health emergencies, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, protective services were provided to 1.8 million children on the move in 74 countries. COVID-19 has both exacerbated the mental health burden affecting the worlds children, and served to bring much-needed attention to mental health as an essential component of a childs well-being and development. Around 47.2 million children, adolescents, parents and caregivers benefited from UNICEF-supported community based mental health and psychosocial support an exponential growth compared with previous years. This included providing support through safe spaces, peer-to peer support activities, positive parenting skills activities, focused and non-focused mental health services and targeted community awareness campaigns. Additionally, significant efforts were made to expand the reach of mental health-related mass communications outreach campaigns. Taken together with these mass media campaigns, overall UNICEF-supported interventions reached more than 78 million children, adolescents, parents and caregivers in 117 countries. COVID-19 quarantine and confinement measures, and the ripple effect of the socioeconomic impact of the pandemic increased the risks of gender-based violence (GBV) and worsen its severity across country contexts, particularly for women and girls already at heightened risk from living in emergency and prolonged crisis contexts. Around 17.8 million women, girls and boys were provided with GBV interventions across 84 countries. That is more than five times the number reached in 2019. COVID-19 has accelerated the scale-up of protection from sexual exploitation and abuse, with 91 countries now having safe and accessible reporting channels, country action plans, training for partners and strengthened referral pathways; 44.3 million children and adults have access to these services. UNICEF and partners provided nearly 137,000 children with family tracing and reunification services and alternative care. This was a 163 per cent increase from 2019 (74 per cent of the target population). UNICEF continued to harness its leadership role within the United Nations Legal Identity Agenda to strengthen civil registration, vital statistics and identity management, and directly supported 74 countries to improve their birth registration services, as part of overall civil registration and vital statistics improvements. While the number of birth notifications in 2020 increased by 6 per cent across 48 countries, compared with 2019 figures, the impact of service disruptions as a result of COVID-19 was most felt in birth registration and certification rates. The spotlighting of the civil registration system, including birth registration, and recognition by governments of its importance in monitoring the pandemics impact, provides an opportunity to further leverage government investment and commitment to close the legal identity gap. The COVID-19 pandemic generated enormous pressure on rule of law systems worldwide and compounded the challenges for childrens access to justice. UNICEF led a global call for the immediate and safe release of children from detention. These efforts contributed to the release of over 11,600 children across at least 37 countries. To maintain the continuity of justice services for children, there was an increase in the use of virtual and mobile courts, online training of justice professionals, and remote delivery of post-release support and supervision. This is all providing leverage to advocate for wider system reforms for children. With 34 per cent more countries reporting on access to child-friendly justice in 2020, the number of children in contact with the law who received such services increased from 277,700 in 65 countries in 2019, to 412,900 in 87 countries in 2020. The majority of these (almost 154,000) were attributed to improved reporting in four countries (Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Morocco). The social service workforce is the backbone of child protection systems. UNICEF supported over 143 countries to strengthen aspects of their social service workforce. Across the board, countries showed an improvement in the quality assurance system of social service work. More than 100 countries reported rapid reductions in access to home visits and social services. To address this, UNICEF advocated for the SSW to be supported and recognized as an essential workforce during COVID-19 response and launched a campaign to promote the work of frontline workers which generated more than 12 million engagements. By mid-2020, 74 countries had introduced measures to address the gaps in social service delivery. UNICEF has accelerated work within child protection on-line, partly due to the amplification of online risks and harms from the widespread move to digital platforms during the pandemic. Governments and industry looked to UNICEF for support to put safeguards in place and ensure appropriate responses for children that experienced harm. This demand continues to grow. At the same time, the technological landscape is changing rapidly, and there are increasing and new forms of child exploitation. There is a critical need to step up UNICEF capacity in this area given the significant opportunities at this moment to influence global frameworks and industry practice as well as to strengthen efforts in programme countries to ensure duty-bearers are equipped with knowledge and skills (and where relevant, equipment) to identify and respond to cases of online abuse and to build in evidence-based prevention initiatives as part of overall efforts to end all forms of violence against children in line with State party commitments under the CRC and the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. In sum, UNICEF reports that as a result of the investment in strengthening child protection systems across the world over many years, UNICEF and partners were better-positioned to pivot into COVID-19 programming, achieving better results for children than in years pasts as exemplified by: the 126 countries where UNICEF reached over 4 million children who had experienced violence with health, social work and justice services (of whom 24,227 were children with disabilities across 55 countries, 51 per cent more than in 2019); the parenting programmes which reached over 2.6 million parents and caregivers across 87 countries; the over 711,000 children without parental or family care who were provided with appropriate alternative care arrangements in 87 countries; the 16.4 million reached through education, communication and social mobilization platforms promoting FGM elimination; the 6 million girls who received child-marriage related prevention and care interventions; and the more than 11,600 children who were released from detention using alternative measures and the prohibition of new entries into detention across 37 countries.

Goal Area 3: Every child is protected from violence and exploitation The UNICEF Strategic Plan 2018–2021 (SP) details UNICEF’s future direction and strategic priorities over the coming four years. The SP provides a vehicle to support the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and responds to its call to ‘leave no one behind’. It seeks to protect children from violence and exploitation, with a specific focus across development and humanitarian contexts on reducing violence in all its forms, eliminating harmful practices, and enhancing children’s access to justice. The Strategic Plan describes the results to be achieved by UNICEF and key partners by 2021 in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (the WHAT). It also describes the change strategies necessary for the achievement of results (the HOW) and the internal factors that support the change strategies and the achievement of results (the ENABLERS). The Strategic Plan builds on key lessons from the previous Strategic Plan. For the first time, it includes a common chapter that specifies how UNICEF will to work together with other United Nations funds and programmes, in particular the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. Theory of Change Statement for Goal Area 3 is: If countries have strengthened child protection systems for prevention and response services to address violence against children, and if they have strengthened prevention and protection services to address harmful practices (FGM/C and child marriage), and if they have improved systems to protect children that come in contact with the law and to treat them in accordance with international standards: Then girls and boys will be better protected from violence and exploitation. UNICEF has identified three outputs, anchored in a rights-based approach to programming, to contribute towards the achievement of Goal Area 3 outcome: Girls and boys, especially the most vulnerable and those affected by humanitarian situations, are protected from all forms of violence, exploitation, abuse and harmful practices. These are: Output statement 3.a: Countries have strengthened child protection systems for prevention and response services to address violence against children Output statement 3.b: Countries have strengthened prevention and protection services to address harmful practices (FGM/C and child marriage) Output statement 3.c: Countries have improved systems to protect children that come in contact with the law (as victims, witnesses, alleged offenders or as parties in administrative proceedings that affect them) and to treat them in accordance with international standards. For all of the outputs a dedicated ToC has been or is in the process of being developed. UNICEF’s Strategic Plan (SP) 2018–2021 contains 31 outcome and output indicators that refer to Goal Area 3 (Every child is protected from violence and exploitation). Of these indicators, 58% track UNICEF’s work within the Result Area on violence against children, 16% within the Result Area on harmful practices and 26% within the Result Area on improve access to justice. The results framework of the SP 2018-2021 states the commitments UNICEF has made to the board in terms of disaggregation. In the SP, UNICEF committed itself to track and report on indicator data disaggregated by sex, age, geography, disability and humanitarian situations. This is the minimum standard of disaggregation in UNICEF. The goal specific theory of change is described in detail in(UNICEF/2017/EB/11), To illustrate some of the activities within Goal Area 3 below some examples of UNICEF’s support on justice/law enforcement services UNICEF assists governments to ensure that ‘social work reaches out’ to the justice system to: a) assist police/prosecution/judge to protect child victims when giving statements and testimonies; b) provide an opinion on a juvenile offender and his/her suitability for diversion/alternative sanction; and c) ensure that judges take into account the child’s opinion when making custody and care decisions. UNICEF advocates with the government because judges are not accustomed to listening to practitioners who are not lawyers within the civil service system. UNICEF helps governments plan funding for these staff members and helps set up certification systems for judges and prosecutors that abides them to include social workers in the judicial process. UNICEF demonstrates the important work of social workers, with the aim of advocating for investments in this sector. UNICEF helps government and populations understand how important this work is in ensuring that the rights of the child are respected (right to safety, right to participation, right to being heard, right to family). To illustrate the result tracking methodology, below an example of an outcome indicator within “Access to justice” and what it measures: Outcome indicator 3.6.a: Percentage (%) of girls and boys that are in contact with the justice and administrative bodies who a) benefit from interventions to improve children’s access to justice, such as specialized legal aid for children, through UNICEF-supported programmes This indicator tracks the measure changes in the proportion of children in contact with the justice system who receive specialized support. It is formulated as the number of children below age 18 in contact with the justice system during the past calendar year who received specialized support, expressed as a percentage of all children below age 18. Children in contact with justice and administrative bodies are children involved in criminal, civil and administrative proceedings, directly or through their legal representatives. It refers to boys and girls who have benefited – directly or indirectly – through UNICEF programmes in countries where UNICEF works towards improving children’s access to justice. Justice systems play a key role in addressing child rights violations including violence against girls and boys, and preventing its re-occurrence. In many countries, administrative bodies decide to not apply child-sensitive measures in civil and administrative proceedings. Girls and boys may also come into contact with justice systems in relation to their perceived or actual association with armed parties to conflict. Children’s participation in criminal, civil and administrative proceedings are central to bringing perpetrators to justice and redressing violations of their rights, but their re-victimization during the procedures must be avoided. Protection of children from violence often involves custody and care decisions where courts and administrative bodies play a key role and children’s participation in proceedings affecting them is an essential consideration. The countries considered for this indicator at the time of setting the baselines and targets were 63 countries. The 2016 baseline for this indicator is 31%. This is based on 876,698 children per year that were in contact with the justice and administrative bodies in these 63 countries (based on the 2017 SP Baseline Survey question 2), with 275,243 of these received UNICEF-supported interventions to improve their access to justice. Based on a gradually increasing rate of change, by the end of 2021, 48% of girls and boys that are in contact with the justice and administrative bodies will receive interventions through UNICEF-supported programmes on justice for children reform. It is expected that the annual change is gradually increasing every year from 31% in 2016 to 32% in 2017 (an annual increase of 3%) 34% in 2018 (increase of 6%), 37% in 2019 (increase of 9%), 41% in 2020 (increase of 12%) and 48% in 2021 (annual increase of 15%). The assumption for the increasing rate of change is that there will be focused attention on and investment in developing global goods and tools, including a global access to justice Theory of Change and programme guidance, research and data strengthening activities.