Seeing the Sustainable Development Goals and Voluntary National Reviews through a Child Protection Lens

All 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) touch the lives of children. This means that realizing the rights of children, including their right to protection from violence, requires a holistic and integrated approach to development. More than half of the world’s children suffer some form of violence each year. The socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with ongoing complex humanitarian crises, has made this appalling situation even worse.

More children than ever face extreme poverty, discrimination, and social exclusion. Nearly 1 billion children lived in poverty before the pandemic, a figure that is now 10% higher.1 Poverty increases children’s vulnerability to violence in all its forms, including child labour, sexual violence, child marriage, trafficking, and recruitment into criminal gangs and armed groups. More children than ever have also been forcibly displaced, fleeing conflict, violence, climate change, and natural disasters, as well as food insecurity. Nearly 37 million children were displaced within or outside their countries in 2021 – the highest number since the end of the Second World War.

All too often, children who are victims of violence lack access to essential services such as social protection, health and psychosocial support, education, child protection, and justice. The challenges presented by violence against children affect the whole world. No country is exempt, and no child is immune. We need to shift the development paradigm toward a child- and gender-sensitive, integrated approach that recognizes the interlinkages between the SDGs and children’s rights as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Violence prevention makes economic sense. Greater investment in child- and gender-sensitive, cross-sectoral violence prevention and protection systems and services that encompass child protection, birth registration/documentation, education, health, justice, and social protection, will bring huge economic returns. Investing in children also means involving them as part of the solution. Their voices need to be heard and acted upon; their initiatives shared and supported.

Since 2020, I have engaged with Member States during their preparations for the Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs), aiming to mainstream the protection of children and of their rights, as recommended by the Call to Action for Human Rights3 and Our Common Agenda.4 I strongly commend Member States that have included children’s rights and violence prevention in their SDG implementation and monitoring processes, such as the VNRs, and encourage others to do so. We have less than seven years to fulfil the promises made to children in the 2030 Agenda and time is running out. We must invest more in children – and quickly – as the present and future generations.