Commitment to Child Protection
IWDA is committed to the human rights including the safety and well being of all children in accordance with the UNCRC and the two optional protocols.
IWDA recognizes that all children are vulnerable, but that some children are rendered more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, including children with physical and mental disabilities, homeless children, child sex workers and children impacted by disasters, orphaned or homeless.
Children have a right to survival, development, protection and participation as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, (UNCRC). IWDA will uphold these rights.
IWDA has a duty of care to ensure that any child directly associated with IWDA activities is protected.
The aim of IWDA’s Child Rights and Protection Policy is to:
- Provide and advocate for children and young people’s safety and protection in all aspects of IWDA’s work
- Promote informed and confident responses to specific child protection issues
- Ensure the criminalization of child abuse in all of its forms
- Provide partner organisations the necessary tools to uphold UNCRC convention and its protocols
- To set out a clear process for reporting and managing allegations against those bound by the policy
- To ensure that complaints and allegations receive a prompt, sensitive responses and both protects children and ensures procedural fairness to those against whom complaints are made.
In keeping with IWDA’s vision and mission, and to align IWDA with the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, IWDA actively upholds the rights of women and children.
IWDA does not directly provide services to children in its overseas development work. However, children are occassionally present during IWDA activities, in our partner organisations’ or where staff, volunteers and consultants work.
Every country in which IWDA currently has a partner has ratified the UNCRC. Most have also ratified both optional protocols one and two.
