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Poverty and Child Protection: Children who live in extreme poverty are often those who experience violence, exploitation, abuse and discrimination. In the immediate term, poverty lessens the chances they will enjoy a protective environment, they easily become marginalized and are frequently denied essential services like health and education. In the long run, in a self- perpetuating cycle, their marginalization decreases the likelihood that they will escape poverty for themselves and their families as they enter adulthood.
Child Labour: Child labour squanders a nation’s human capital. It is both a cause and consequence of poverty. It damages a child’s health, threatens education and leads to further exploitation and abuse.
Trafficking: Poverty is the root cause of trafficking of children for various purposes.
Conflict/Civil disturbances: Conflict/civil disturbances deplete physical, economic and human recourses and leads to displacement of populations.
Birth Registration: Without documents to prove birth registration, children and families cannot often access health, education and other social services. The Government cannot plan poverty alleviation and social service programs without accurate estimates of yearly births.
Abandonment and Separation from Family: Poverty and exclusion contribute to child abandonment, sending children to work on the street or in other environments away from home, and to the use of formal and informal fostering arrangements as well as institutional care. While some of these strategies sometimes may address the child or the families short term economic needs, they can also lead to poor child development, leaving children unprepared to deal with adulthood, and a greater likelihood of continuing the cycle of poverty.
Children in conflict with the law: The CRC and other HR instruments make clear that children accused of crimes are entitled to treatment which takes into account the child's age and the desirability of promoting the child's reintegration and the child's assuming a constructive role in society. When this is not done, children’s chance of reintegration is reduced, and their likelihood of poverty and marginalization in adulthood rises.
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Participants