Child Protection and
Poverty Linkages
ODI/ OAK Foundation
Rachel Marcus
Consultant, Overseas Development
Institute
Focus of Research
Four thematic areas: inadequate care, sexual abuse and exploitation, physical violence
and early marriage
1) What are the linkages between economic deprivation and child protection
violations? (Comprehensive literature review)
2) What actions in child protection programmes address economic deprivation and
how effective are these actions? (Adapted systematic review)
•
•
A 15 month research programme involving a comprehensive literature review,
adapted systematic review, e-survey and expert interviews
Country studies now under way in Uganda, Vietnam and Ethiopia
Relationship economic deprivation and child
protection violations
• Of the child protection areas examined, economic deprivation is an
important factor exacerbating the risk of: early marriage, sexual
exploitation, involvement in gang/neighbourhood violence (as
victim and perpetrator), children left without competent care while
adults are working, institutionalisation, accidental injury
• Poor living environments may increase risk of sexual violence (eg
unsafe neighbourhoods, communal toilets)
• Poor children at greater risk of sexual and physical abuse at work
(because more likely to be working)
• Evidence on relationship between physical abuse and poverty
mixed but overall limited, esp. where corporal punishment widely
accepted.
Adapted Systematic Review: Evidence Base
Multi-dimensional conception of poverty
Knowledge gap concerning impacts of actions to reduce economic
deprivation.
Entailed looking at a wide range of child protection programmes and
other programmes where child protection outcomes were reported
ie not just economic strengthening programmes
369 papers were quality assessed for adapted systematic review
After quality assessment, 80 papers on interventions included in
review
Overall 71 interventions examined, 13 for early marriage, 27 for sexual
violence, 15 for physical violence, and 20 for promoting better care
(several programmes had impacts on more than one issue)
How far Do CP Programmes involve
Economic Strengthening Components?
Economic strengthening programmes
Cash transfers
Vocational skills training
Microfinance
In-kind transfers
Entrepreneurship training and support
Job search information/ job matching
Between a third and a half the programmes examined have economic
strengthening components. Most common for early marriage.
Largely run by NGOs. Only exceptions were large cash transfer programmes
(state-run)
Very little integration with broader social/ child protection systems (reflects
fact that most programmes examined were small-scale and run by NGOs)
Caveat: small number of programmes within each thematic area
Programme Mechanisms
Early Marriage
(n=18)
Sexual Violence
(n=26)
Physical Violence (n=15)
Promoting Better
Care (n=20)
No. of
%
interventions
with this
component
Mechanism
No. of
interventions
with this
component
%
No. of
interventions
with this
component
%
No. of interventions with %
this component
Total
Occurrence
of Each
Component
Economic
Strengthening
9
50
9
33
5
33 7
35
29
Education/
10
Awareness Raising/
Life skills (Children)
56
13
50
6
40 1
5
30
Education/
Awareness Raising
(Adults)
9
50
8
31
12
80 9
45
38
Improving Access
to or Quality of
Services (mostly
Education/ Day
care)
5
28
0
0
0
0
15
8
Child Protection
System
Strengthening
2
11
10
56
4
27 1
5
17
Mentoring/ Social
Support
7
35
8
44
3
20 4
20
4
3
Economic Strengthening Mechanisms
Type of Intervention
Cash transfers
In-kind transfers
Vocational skills
training
Entrepreneurship
training/ support
Microfinance
Job search
information/ job
matching
Occurrence in
Interventions
Examined
EM SV PV
2
1
2
4
BC
2 5
3 9
12%
22%
4
1
14
33%
3
7%
10
24%
3
7%
4
5
Total As % Economic
Strengthening
Activities
3
5
2
3
1
1
1
Concentrated in Which
Thematic Areas?
Early marriage
Better care, early
marriage
Early marriage, Sexual
violence, physical
violence
Sexual violence
Early marriage, Sexual
violence
Early marriage, physical
violence
Early marriage: overview of programmes examined
• 18 programmes in South Asia, Ethiopia and
• Senegal;
• 3 large (reaching 100,000+ children)
• 9/18 had economic strengthening
components
• Breakdown: 2 cash transfer, 2 in-kind
transfer, 5 microfinance,4 vocational skills training, 1 job-search
(NB several programmes had multiple economic strengthening activities)
• Economic strengthening activities mostly run by NGOs (large cash transfer
programmes were state-run)
Cash and In-kind Transfers
Conditional cash transfers, uniform and fee subsidies, and provision of school materials
helped keep girls in school and achieved significant reduction in EM
• Eg 1.2-15 years’ projected delay in age of marriage (Pakistan)
• 30 % reduction in marriage among secondary school girls (Malawi)
• Uniform recipient girls in Kenya 14% less likely to be married and boys 40% less likely
than control group
Was it:
A) By keeping girls in school and thus they were seen as unmarriageable?
OR B) through the impact on household finances?
May be different mechanisms for in school and out-of-school girls (Malawi).
Most programmes lacked an awareness-raising component so no evidence as to whether
this would have had additional impact.
Berhane Hewan (Ethiopia): school supplies had greatest impact on girls’ school
attendance but community awareness raising had greatest effect on early marriage rates
Early marriage: Mixed evidence for
vocational skills and microfinance
• Mixed evidence about impact of microcredit for girls and trade-offs with
schooling; especially in contexts where there has been a big push for
secondary education for girls (e.g. Bangladesh); and also among younger
girls (15/16 year olds).
• Savings generally seen more positively than credit
• Vocational skills training mixed – reflects specific programmes/
evaluations rather than constituting clear evidence on vocational skills
training as strategy for reducing early marriage
• Job-search support in India had positive effect (but only one programme)
• All these programmes targeted girls directly – none targeted families to
reduce economic constraints that may lead to early marriage
Early marriage: non-formal education &
communication activities
• Non-formal education (eg life skills)
contributed to significant reduction; esp. in
ability to negotiate timing of marriage
• NFE increased awareness of law and of safe
age of marriage
• Even split between girls who felt able/
unable to influence marriage decisions
• Effectiveness of communication campaigns
greatest among the youngest girls (10-14) and in
contexts where viable alternatives to EM exist
• Critically important to bring influencers of social
norms , (including religious leaders,
grand/parents, mothers-in-laws) ‘on side’
Sexual violence: Overview of Programmes
•
•
•
•
•
•
26 programmes:21 in Africa, 2in Asia, 1
in CIS, 1 in LAC, 1 in Middle East
Only 3/9 gave data on numbers reached.
Of these 3 reached 2000+ children
% run by NGOs
9 (33%) had economic strengthening
components
9 had economic strengthening
components, 10 child protection
strengthening, 13 NFE/ life skills for
children/ youth and 8 awareness raising
for adults
ES programmes focused on commercial/
transactional sexual exploitation. Only 3
looked at trafficking.
Sexual violence: impact of economic strengthening
programmes
• Strongest vocational skills programmes seen in this theme (eg
Save the Children programme in Northern Uganda, BRAC in
Uganda) – linked to entrepreneurship training alongside
vocational skills
• Savings more effective than loans for younger adolescents
• Cash & in-kind transfers limited but some evidence of uniform
subsidy helping reduce cross-generational sex (typically
exploitative and risky)
• Skills training and transfers generally played limited role in
reducing trafficking
Sexual violence: Positive role of child
protection systems and life skills
• Child protection systems strengthening:
-
-
•
Appeared most effective for sexual abuse (compared to other violations) as fitted with
community perceptions of what constitutes abuse
Diverse approaches, including school-based protection structures, sensitising police, building
community level reporting structures, raising adult awareness
Poverty a barrier to use of child protection system (court fees, medical fees, corruption –
Uganda & Zambia)
Life skills programmes: had positive effect on girls’ sense of their capacity to
negotiate around sex (Uganda, Kenya, E Africa regional);
- Boys learned about girls’ views towards sexual harassment (Thailand, Namibia);
important because school-based abuse more common by boys than teachers
-Changed attitudes, and some evidence of reduced teen pregnancy (Kenya)
- Many achieved significant changes without economic strengthening components
Physical violence
• 15 interventions; 6 in Africa, 6 in LAC, 2 in
Middle East, 1 in SE Europe, 0 in Asia
• All small-scale
• Deal with corporal punishment/ physical abuse,
involvement in gang violence, former child
soldiers
• 5/15 had economic strengthening component
• (vocational skills training, microfinance,
assistance with job searching)
• All 5 were related to gangs/ post-conflict
violence prevention
• All economic strengthening activities were run
by NGOs; awareness raising programmes for
parents run by government or academics
Physical violence: awareness raising and
NFE play important role
•
Awareness raising for adults: generally worked well in supporting parents and
teachers to find alternatives to physical punishment. (eg Lebanon reduction in use
of severe physical punishment from 40% to 6%)
–
•
Most programmes have focused on low-income communities and achieve change
without complementary economic strengthening activities.
Life/ vocational skills for youth: typically for youth in violent neighbourhoods, in
or at risk of gang involvement or of victimisation.
–
–
–
Help build social networks that help break down rivalries between neighbourhoods
and provide safe spaces to socialise; mentoring role also important
Most effective projects provided skills with high demand (ICT) which helped
marginalised youth escape poverty and become socially integrated through work
But economic strengthening components can be challenging as impoverished
communities may struggle to invest in youth-owned businesses – as in post-war
Angola
Promoting better care: overview of
programmes
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•
•
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•
20 programmes: 11 in Africa, 6 in Asia, 6
in LAC, 3 in Middle East
Main approaches: improved child care
knowledge/ practice, improved access to
day care, reduced risk/ incidence of
accidents, better care of orphans
7/20 programmes had economic
strengthening component – primarily
orphan support programmes run by
NGOs
Principally in-kind transfers, some cash
and microfinance
5 programmes reached over 10,000
children (national cash transfer, nursery
and parenting programmes)
Better care: training, mentoring,
subsidised day-care
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•
•
•
Training effective in changing knowledge and practices re child care, especially
regarding greater stimulation, and accident prevention. Poverty emerged as
barrier to greater change in accident prevention practices (South Africa, Mexico,
Bangladesh)
Mentoring programmes: can provide essential material support to carers /
vulnerable children, but constrained by mentors’ poverty, and problems of
sustainability, low prioritisation and underfinancing by village governments
(Tanzania). Also raises problems of singling out orphans.
Subsidised day care helped reduce poverty by enabling parents to work, and/or
prevented young children being left alone, e.g. Mexico, Guatemala, but demand
outstrips supply - even with Mexico’s estancias which is reaching 200,000 children.
Plus issues of quality
Cash transfers seen as effective in alleviating financial constraints to good care;
positive impacts seen from both conditional and unconditional transfers (but only
two programmes – Uganda and Peru)
Key Knowledge Gaps
• What is the relative effectiveness of individual components of integrated
programmes?
• Could integrated programmes be streamlined to facilitate going to scale?
• For what types of child protection issues can we achieve as much or more
through broader poverty interventions compared to child protectionfocused initiatives?
• What about longitudinal effects? Are the impacts of awareness-raising/
life skills programmes more sustainable over time than those that focus on
economic strengthening?
• What political economy factors have facilitated programmes with positive
child protection outcomes going to scale?
Conclusions: How important are
economic strengthening activities?
• Varies across and within themes
• Much change achieved by changing attitudes/ knowledge alone
(sexual harassment, physical violence, early marriage, better care)
BUT
Also strong evidence of positive effect of transfers/ subsidies on
reducing early marriage without any attitude-change activities
And positive impacts of good quality entrepreneurship/ vocational
skills for sexual exploitation, gang violence
And income poverty continues to be barrier to accessing CP systems,
improving care practices and continues to exacerbate likelihood of
early marriage & sexual exploitation
Economic strengthening: where are
impacts greatest?
Age
- Emerging evidence that microcredit, entrepreneurship training
worked better for older adolescents; vocational skills worked with
‘mid-adolescents’ and upwards if well linked into local labour
markets and adequate support provided
- Little attention to helping parents generate better incomes – focus
principally on adolescents
- Youngest children bypassed by programmes that distribute transfers
(cash or in-kind) through school, though they may share in broader
benefits to households