Save the Children is committed to uphold children’s right to protection from all forms of violence.
Violence against children can happen anywhere. It can happen at home, in school, community, institution or the workplace; and anytime – whether in an emergency or not.
According to a national study on violence against children (2016), 80% of Filipino children have experienced some form of violence in their lifetime. This includes physical and psychological violence, sexual violence, bullying, exploitation, and violence in the internet. Violence seriously harms children physically and psychologically, hampers their development, and violates their right to protection.
Save the Children is against all forms of violence against children.
Our child protection work
All children, especially the most vulnerable, must be protected at all costs. Hence, we work with government, non-government organizations (NGOs), children’s groups, schools and communities to strengthen the protective environment for children.
We work with the government at national and local levels to pass and implement laws and policies that will protect children from all forms of violence. We are influencing the Philippine Congress to pass a law that would protect children from physical and humiliating punishment, and promote positive discipline.
With our partner government agencies and NGOs, we help parents, caregivers and teachers to change the way they discipline children into more positive and non-violent ways through our Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting (PDEP) and Positive Discipline in Everyday Teaching (PDET) trainings all over the country.
We influence the government to ensure that quality programs and services for the protection of children are widely available and can reach children. This includes working with government agencies to adopt PDEP and PDET trainings to reach more parents, caregivers, and educators.
We also help improve the knowledge, skills and attitudes of service providers, schools and NGOs to enable them to protect children in emergency and non-emergency contexts.
However, none of these efforts will have positive effects without the participation and support of children, parents, caregivers, teachers and the public. Thus, we make the public aware of what violence against children is and how it happens. We encourage and organize individuals and groups to support our advocacy for child protection. Together, we are hoping that these efforts will bring us closer to achieving for our children a future that is free from violence.