Report
Update: IRC Response to the 1st Global Ministerial to End Violence against Children:
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) welcomes the outcomes of the First Global Ministerial to End Violence against Children (VAC), held last month in Bogota, Colombia, and hosted by the governments of Colombia, Sweden, UNICEF, and WHO. Over 100 countries made pledges ahead of the conference, with over 1/3 of those making commitments to increase their support to parents and caregivers, a key recommendation of the IRC ahead of the conference.
IRC participated in events ahead of and during the Ministerial to showcase effective solutions, discuss new ways to engage in partnership, and promote innovations and new evidence of what works, all to ensure that children living in crisis and conflict are represented in the discussions, pledges, and outcomes. A focus on parenting and caregiver support was particularly emphasized in events co-led by the Global Initiative to Support Parents, of which the IRC is a coordinating partner. The impact of multiple forms of adversity on children and their intergenerational impacts was highlighted, reflecting the reality of the over 47 million children living in humanitarian settings.
"The IRC has been working to prevent and respond to violence against children across humanitarian contexts for decades and it has often felt like an uphill battle to get enough attention to this topic - though half of children around the globe face violence. The last week has been energizing and revitalizing; it has given me hope that we could be seeing a new era to this critical work," said Inah Kaloga, Senior Director of the Violence Prevention and Response Unit of the IRC, after delivering the closing Call to Action at a pre-Ministerial event organized by IRC partner the Alliance for Children Protection in Humanitarian Action. One of IRC’s pledges at the Ministerial is to co-lead the Alliance for the coming three years, committing to advance localization, accountability, and the implementation of the Child Protection Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Action as priorities during that time.
Yvonne Agengo, Global Practice Lead for Child Protection at the IRC, added, "IRC has worked closely with a number of governments to ensure that their pledges match the urgency of the moment and include children living in the contexts we work - humanitarian crisis and conflict. We were especially gratified to support the participation of government officials from the Central African Republic and see their pledge towards Parenting support, as well as the bold, evidence-based, and funded pledges of other governments such as Tanzania and Kenya, and hear Jordan speaking on their role supporting refugees.”
Other key pledges – such as the United States’ pledge towards response and support services in emergency and humanitarian settings; Colombia’s pledges that focus on online violence; and a number of countries, like Zambia, Turkiye, and the Philippines, will work to strengthen the social service workforce and child protection systems – align closely with IRC’s recommendations and are critical to create the sea-change to respond to VAC at the scale necessary. Particularly poignant were the number of pledges, such as from Pakistan and the United Kingdom, that recognized and promised to tackle the unequal gender norms that perpetuate intergenerational violence, including violence against children and violence against women that occur in the same homes.
As a pledge-maker ourselves, the IRC stands ready to work with governments, the humanitarian system, and our fellow NGOs to deliver on the promise of the Global Ministerial in the coming days, months, and years.
Original summary:
In November 2024, the Government of Colombia, with the support of the Government of Sweden, UNICEF, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children, and the World Health Organization, will host the first-ever Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children.
Participants are being asked to re-imagine a world in which children are safe everywhere – in their homes, schools, communities, and online. Governments are being asked to put forward bold, transformative pledges to shift our collective efforts on child protection towards a world where all childhoods are safe.
Around the world the IRC works with our clients, local leaders and partners to ensure that these and similar pledges explicitly include the world’s most marginalized children – those living in conflict, crisis, and displacement.
To ensure that governments take this once-in-a-decade opportunity to make robust pledges, the IRC has put forward this Position Paper for the Conference. In the paper, we call on all pledge-makers to include both children and their caregivers, to work across sectors to ensure children are safe everywhere, and to ensure civil society voices are heard as pledges are drafted.
