Accountability in protection of children against violence: Monitoring and measurement

Abstract

Violence against children (VAC) is a pervasive and persistent injustice around the world. Thirty years after the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the right of children to be protected against all forms of violence is still routinely violated. It is only within the last twenty years that the scope of this problem has been studied; as many point out, understanding the scope of the problem through comprehensive data collection is necessary to improve child protection. Data collection and data quality have improved drastically over this time. The Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights recommends using comprehensive indicator systems that collect data on States Parties' structure- and process-related commitments to fulfil human rights, and on the outcomes of these commitments. However, most existing indicator sets on VAC fall short of this comprehensive approach, often focusing only on structural or outcome indicators. An international team of child rights experts is now developing GlobalChild, which will be an online platform consisting of comprehensive sets of structure-, process-, and outcome-related indicators for all 41 substantive rights of the CRC. This system will advance data collection, facilitate the monitoring function of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, and enable research on many rights of children, including their right to protection against violence. VAC is a complex problem, and protection against VAC is a right that is indivisible from other rights under the CRC. Therefore, a comprehensive and systematic approach is required to improve accountability to children around the world.

Keywords: Accountability in protection of children against violence; Article 19; Child protection; Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC); Indicators; Monitoring; Violence against children (VAC).