Child protection

World Vision defines child protection as all efforts to prevent and respond to abuse, neglect, exploitation, and other forms of violence against children — especially the most vulnerable.

We seek to create a protective environment around children that ensures their physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs are met within caring and protective families and communities.

We value the family as the primary social unit and affirm the role of parents and family caregivers as those primarily responsible for the nurturing and protection of children. Children develop best in a family-based environment rather than institutional care, the detrimental impacts of which are now widely recognized.

For that reason, we start by equipping families to better care for and protect children, reducing risk of separation from their immediate and extended family, strengthening systems that provide alternative community-based options to institutionalization, and supporting transition and de-institutionalization processes.

Our goal is to help ensure that children can remain with family members. If this is not in the child’s best interest, World Vision supports the family, community, and local leaders in finding community-based solutions.

World Vision works in partnership with local hospitals, schools, community leaders, faith communities, and law enforcement agencies to raise awareness and advocate for risks to children, to speak out against harmful attitudes and practices, and to identify and respond to abuse and exploitation when they encounter it.

World Vision focuses on the most vulnerable — for example, children separated from their families, who live or work on the street, who are affected by disaster or conflict, or who are not in school — and provides targeted education for these children on what trafficking is and recruitment techniques that traffickers use. By connecting vulnerable children with quality education and supporting families to meet children’s immediate needs, such as food and housing, we can contribute significantly to the prevention of child slavery and trafficking.

World Vision brings together key actors to create a protective environment where all children, especially the most vulnerable, are cared for and supported.

The foundation of our approach is Child Protection and Advocacy groups, consisting of formal and informal partners across the child’s world. These groups coordinate and implement programs that:

• EMPOWER GIRLS and BOYS, through knowledge and practical skills, to protect themselves and one another
• STRENGTHEN FAMILIES with parenting and social and economic support so they can function as a first line of protection for children
• ADDRESS HARMFUL ATTITUDES, NORMS, AND BEHAVIORS — ensuring solutions are appropriate to the local context by working closely with families, community and faith leaders, and children themselves
• INFLUENCE GOVERNMENTS through advocacy at all levels, including strengthening local people’s voices, to improve child protection laws and systems
• ADDRESS OTHER ROOT CAUSES of violence against children

Children who have been abused or exploited need time and care to recover. We work to reunite them with their families and communities when possible and appropriate, and start by helping them heal through medical, legal, and psychosocial services — connecting them with opportunities to build life and livelihood skills and further their education. Often, this means providing a safe place for them to go while offering counseling and recovery activities.