Child Protection & Child Rights

Child Protection

Children experience insidious forms of violence, exploitation and abuse. It happens in every country, and in the places children should be most protected – their homes, schools and online. Violence against children can be physical, emotional or sexual. And in many cases, children suffer at the hands of the people they trust.

Children in humanitarian settings are especially vulnerable. During armed conflict, natural disasters and other emergencies, children may be forced to flee their homes, some torn from their families and exposed to exploitation and abuse along the way. They risk injury and death. They may be recruited by armed forces. Especially for girls and women, the threat of gender-based violence soars.

Harmful cultural practices pose another grave risk in various parts of the world. Hundreds of millions of girls have been subjected to child marriage and female genital mutilation – even though both are internationally recognized human rights violations.

No matter the circumstance, every child has the right to be protected from violence, exploitation and abuse. Child protection systems connect children to vital social services and fair justice systems – starting at birth. They provide care to the most vulnerable, including children uprooted by conflict, poverty and disaster; victims of child labour or trafficking; and those who live with disabilities or in alternative care. Above all, protecting children means protecting their physical, mental and psychosocial needs to safeguard their futures. 

Child Labour

Economic hardship exacts a toll on millions of families worldwide – and in some places, it comes at the price of a child’s physical safety. Nearly 1 in 10 children across the globe are subjected to child labour, almost half of whom are in hazardous forms of work.

Child Marriage

Child marriage robs girls of their childhood and threatens their well-being. Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence and less likely to remain in school. They have worse economic and health outcomes than their unmarried peers, which are eventually passed down to their own children, further straining a country’s capacity to provide quality health and education services.

very child has the right to grow up in a supportive family environment. But worldwide, an estimated 2.7 million children live in residential care – and the actual figure is likely much higher. Growing up in an institution puts children at risk of physical, emotional and social harm.

Across the world, millions of children interact with justice systems every year. They could be victims or witnesses to a crime. They could be alleged, accused or recognized as having broken the law. They could be in need of care or safety, or seeking to protect their rights. But justice systems do not always fulfil the promise of fairness. And in some places, they fail to uphold children's most basic rights.

In areas affected by conflict, natural disasters and other emergencies, people trust aid workers to assist and protect them. The vast majority do so with professionalism and integrity. But some aid workers abuse their position of power through the sexual exploitation and abuse of those who depend on them, including children 

A child’s right to education entails the right to learn. Yet, for too many children across the globe, schooling does not lead to learning.

Over 600 million children and adolescents worldwide are unable to attain minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics, even though two thirds of them are in school. For out-of-school children, foundational skills in literacy and numeracy are further from grasp.

This learning crisis – the rift between the levels of learning children receive and those they, their communities and entire economies need – hit a global scale even before the COVID-19 pandemic brought education systems to a halt.

Around India, children are deprived of education and learning for various reasons. Poverty remains one of the most obstinate barriers. Children living through economic fragility, political instability, conflict or natural disaster are more likely to be cut off from schooling – as are those with disabilities, or from ethnic minorities. In some states, education opportunities for girls remain severely limited.

Even in schools, a lack of trained teachers, inadequate education materials and poor infrastructure make learning difficult for many students. Others come to class too hungry, ill or exhausted from work or household tasks to benefit from their lessons.

Compounding these inequities is a digital divide of growing concern: Some two thirds of the world’s school-aged children do not have internet connection in their homes, restricting their opportunities to further their learning and skills development.

Without quality education, children face considerable barriers to employment and earning potential later in life. They are more likely to suffer adverse health outcomes and less likely to participate in decisions that affect them – threatening their ability to shape a better future for themselves and their societies.

Primary Education

Equitable access to learning opportunities and improved skills development in primary education – including foundational, digital and transferable skills – is key to ensuring that every child is prepared for life, work and active citizenship.

Girls Education

Investing in girls’ education transforms communities, countries and the entire world. Girls who receive an education are less likely to marry young and more likely to lead healthy, productive lives. They earn higher incomes, participate in the decisions that most affect them, and build better futures for themselves and their families.

Adolescent education and skills

Adolescents are growing up in a transforming world. Technology, migration, climate change and conflict are reshaping society, forcing people across the globe to adapt to unexpected changes in their lives and work. To keep up, adolescents must be able to seize opportunities and confront challenges.

Digital learning

The availability and potential of technology makes digital learning an essential service for every child. JRDS leads on initiatives to connect thousands of children and young people to world-class digital solutions so they can bound to a brighter future.

Strengthening education systems

Education systems are complex. Getting all children in school and learning requires alignment across families, educators and decision makers. It requires shared goals, and national policies that put learning at the centre. It also requires data collection and regular monitoring to help policymakers identify what’s working, who’s benefiting, and who’s being left behind.

In conflict and disaster, children suffer first and suffer most. During emergencies and humanitarian contexts, children are especially vulnerable to disease, malnutrition and violence. Children living in conflict areas are worst off – they are more likely to be living in extreme poverty, for instance, or not enrolled in primary school.

The chaos and insecurity of war threatens or destroys access to food, shelter, social support and health care, and results in increased vulnerability in communities, especially for children. JRDS focuses on these children and their families to provide them with the essential interventions required for protection, to save lives and to ensure the rights of all children, everywhere.

JRDS also works to strengthen the links between humanitarian action and development work. Our presence in many countries before, during and after emergencies, delivers a continuum of support. For example, the rehabilitation and upgrade of water and sanitation systems serve vulnerable households in both the immediate crisis and the longer term.

Good nutrition is the bedrock of child survival and development. Well-nourished children are better able to grow, learn, play and participate in their communities. They are also more resilient in the face of crisis.

Yet, today, many children are not getting the nutrition they need to survive and thrive. This is especially true for the poorest and most vulnerable children.

At least one in three children under 5 is affected by malnutrition in its most visible forms: stunting, wasting and overweight.

Children affected by stunting – some 144 million under the age of 5 – are too short for their age, and their brains may never develop to their full cognitive potential, hindering their ability to learn as children, earn as adults, and contribute fully to their societies.

Wasting affects 47 million children globally. Children with wasting are desperately thin, have weakened immune systems, and face an increased risk of death: They require urgent treatment and care to survive.

Overweight affects nearly 38 million children under 5 worldwide. As global food systems shift and the consumption of processed foods high in fat, sugar and salt increases, childhood overweight is on the rise in every region of the world, particularly in middle-income countries.

Less visible forms of malnutrition, such as hidden hunger, can occur when children become deficient in essential vitamins and other micronutrients. These micronutrient deficiencies affect more than 340 million children under 5 globally, delaying their growth, weakening their immune systems and impairing their brain development.

Today, many states of India are facing a double or triple burden of malnutrition – with concurrent problems of stunting, wasting, micronutrient deficiencies, and overweight.

From pregnancy, through childhood, and in adolescence, poor diets are a leading cause of malnutrition in all its forms. Children’s diets are shaped by multiple forces – globalization, urbanization, inequities, environmental crises, epidemics and humanitarian emergencies – that undermine families’ access to nutritious, safe and affordable foods.

The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the pre-existing crisis of child malnutrition, threatening families’ livelihoods, disrupting the availability and affordability of nutritious and safe diets, and straining the delivery of essential nutrition services – with dire consequences for the most vulnerable children.

Early childhood nutrition 

Children need the right foods at the right time to grow and develop to their full potential. The most critical time for good nutrition is during the 1,000-day period from pregnancy until a child’s second birthday.

Nutrition in middle childhood and adolescence 

After early childhood, middle childhood and adolescence – the period from age 5 to 19 – is a second window of opportunity for growth, psychosocial development, and establishing lifelong dietary and lifestyle habits.

Maternal nutrition

During pregnancy and breastfeeding, women become particularly vulnerable to malnutrition. Energy and nutrient needs increase at this time, and meeting them is critical to protecting women’s health and that of their child – in the womb and throughout early childhood.

Maternal and child nutrition in humanitarian action

Driven by conflict, climate change, epidemics, and disasters, humanitarian crises are leaving millions of children and women malnourished and jeopardizing their survival, growth and development.

Making systems work for nutrition

National government have the primary responsibility of upholding children’s and women’s rights to nutrition. To do this effectively, they need strong, resilient systems that help prevent all forms of malnutrition and deliver timely treatment and care when prevention falls short. Multiple systems – including food, health, water and sanitation, social protection, and education – have a role to play in making the right to nutrition a reality. These national governments should follow GO-NGO-BENEFICIARY procedure where we NGOs play vital role in reaching the unreached and remote areas.

We help in mobilizing the local resources to be used for development and in building a self-reliant and sustainable society. We play the role of mediator between people and government in GO-NGO-People pattern. We NGOs are actually the facilitator of development, education and professionalization.

We are on the mission to create a healthy, green and clean planet through tree plantation. Along with our diligent greening efforts, we strive to uplift and assist the rural communities, while promoting extensive agriculture across the nation and making it a happy-green paradise.

We work with a vision of developing lush-green and bio-diverse sustainable world for the future generations by igniting a huge environmental revolution through trees. With our each healthy sapling, we intend to create a repository for a rich ecological bio diverse planet.

At JRDS, Community Development programmes are aimed at making women more independent. This is done through skill development, social get-togethers and small scale business support platforms.

We have observed that when women come together, they display higher levels of confidence which makes a difference in their emotional well-being. As part of our community development initiatives, we impart various vocational trainings to the women from different communities to enhance their self-dependency and develop entrepreneurial skills in them.