Alarming levels of poverty are driving violence against children worldwide
Poverty is a violation of children’s rights and in itself is a form of violence. Children living in poverty are deprived not only of their basic needs, but also of dignity and opportunity. That is why, more than ever, it is necessary to act faster and more effectively to end child poverty and social exclusion.
Progress in tackling poverty worldwide has stalled. Extreme poverty in the poorest countries today is still above pre-pandemic rates. Children are still twice as likely as adults to live in poverty. Today, 333 million children are living below the extreme poverty line and almost 1 billion children live in multidimensional poverty. They include children in the world’s richest countries, where more than 1 in 5 children live in poverty. Globally, 1 in 4 children are living in severe food poverty in early childhood, amounting to 181 million children under 5 years of age. Globally, there are 150.2 million children under 5 affected by stunting.
Multiple ongoing and overlapping crises are trapping many children and families even deeper into poverty and social exclusion. More than 1 in 6 children globally now live in areas affected by conflict, while children account for 40 per cent of the estimated 120 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. Conflict and displacement are powerful drivers of poverty. They disrupt normal processes through which families can engage in paid employment or other productive activities, and they greatly limit access to basic services. Destructive weather patterns, pollution and droughts can amplify poverty risks and undermine families’ and children’s living standards, and they negatively affect productivity by destroying homes, farms and communities. The World Bank estimates that nearly 1 in 5 people are at risk of experiencing welfare losses due to an extreme weather event, from which they will struggle to recover. In addition, the cost-of-living crisis is eroding people’s purchasing power and worsening the existing food crisis, which is already aggravated by the climate crisis.
Poverty and social exclusion are key drivers of many forms of violence against children. Families living in poverty may struggle to access basic resources such as food, decent housing, education and healthcare. Such challenges create additional stress on caregivers, in turn raising the risks of abusive behaviour towards children. It can also lead to substance abuse and mental health problems, heightening the risks of both intimate partner violence and violence against children in the same households. Economic hardship can contribute to negative coping strategies and push children into exploitative situations such as child labour, trafficking, sexual exploitation, child marriage, living and working on the streets, and recruitment by criminal and armed groups. Limited access to quality education and supportive social networks can increase children’s vulnerability to abuse and exploitation. In addition, children living in poverty may become targets of bullying and social exclusion in school and in their communities, which can seriously affect their educational attainment and mental health.
Over 2 million children are estimated to live in residential care worldwide. Many of these children have at least one parent and are placed in institutional care owing to poverty. Children in institutional care are more likely to experience violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation. In addition, once they leave institutional care, many will remain in poverty.
Poverty and social exclusion have huge human and economic costs. Child victims of violence and social exclusion may not reach their full education and health potential, thereby limiting their future income and productivity. This unrealized human potential has inevitable adverse and long-term implications for communities, societies and economies more broadly. For example, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the economic cost of childhood socioeconomic disadvantage in European countries amounts to, on average, the equivalent of 3.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) annually. If children are raised in environments of poverty, social exclusion and violence, they are more likely to stay impoverished as adults and face increased risks of violence, which makes it even more challenging to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty and violence.
Many actions but still many children are left behind
Member States have made substantial investments in both cash transfers and basic services for children and their caregivers. As outlined in the second joint report of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF on social protection for children, important progress has been made at the national and subnational levels in recent years in expanding social protection coverage for children and their caregivers. There have also been important steps taken to advance social care reform as an integral part of ending violence against children and to prevent and build alternatives to the institutionalization of children.
Nevertheless, too many children still do not have access to social protection. According to findings published by ILO in its World Social Protection Report 2024–26, rates of social protection coverage in low-income countries increased from 4.5 per cent in 2015 to 8.7 per cent in 2023. For the same period, lower-middle-income and upper-middle-income countries made more progress, with coverage increasing from 15.0 per cent to 23.5 per cent and from 21.8 per cent to 27.8 per cent of children, respectively. High-income countries continued to edge closer to attaining universal coverage, with rates increasing from 76.8 per cent to 80.5 per cent of children, yet this still leaves 1 in 5 children without coverage. Overall, current data on effective coverage indicate that only 23.9 per cent of children aged 0 to 18 years are covered by social protection, meaning that the vast majority of children – 1.8 billion people under 18 years of age – are not covered.
Average social protection expenditure for children (excluding health expenditure) across the world currently amounts to only 0.7 per cent of GDP, with great variation across countries. While countries in Europe and Central Asia spend more than 1 per cent of GDP, expenditure ratios remain well below that threshold in other parts of the world. Regional estimates for Africa, Asia and the Pacific and the Americas show expenditure levels of 0.5 per cent of GDP or below. Even though investment in early childhood provides strong foundations and can end intergenerational poverty transmission, States allocate significantly less expenditure to social protection in early childhood.
Even where social protection measures are available, children may face barriers to accessing them, which may include administrative inefficiencies and barriers, such as complex eligibility criteria, procedures and documentation requirements. Accessibility is also a challenge, both with respect to physical accessibility to services and access to services online, due to digital illiteracy and lack of connectivity. Financial barriers also arise because of administrative costs and travel to centres where services are provided. Children lacking birth registration, nationality and a legal identity may be ineligible to access social protection. Other children may be excluded or face significant challenges to accessing social protection on the basis of their status or that of their caregivers, such as children in street situations, children in alternative care, children deprived of their liberty, stateless children and children on the move.
Child-sensitive social protection is essential
Evidence-based solutions exist to tackle child poverty and social exclusion. Although cash transfers alone are not sufficient and need to be linked to additional support and care services, they are a critical part of the response. There is strong evidence that child benefits can effectively reduce absolute and relative income child poverty, while acting as the foundation of a child-sensitive social protection system to unlock human capabilities and spur inclusive growth.
Available evidence also indicates that universal child benefits help to achieve greater poverty reduction than means-tested benefits. In efforts to strengthen their social protection systems, States should rapidly move towards universal social protection for children. Currently, only 27 countries have implemented universal child benefits, as outlined in the Child Benefits Tracker developed by UNICEF, ILO and Save the Children. Universal child benefits are a simple and scalable route to universal coverage for children. In addition, implementing universal child benefits is the most inclusive approach and avoids the challenges associated with targeting benefits. A universal approach also eliminates the stigma that may be attached to the receipt of social welfare benefits.
The multidimensional nature of child poverty requires that, in addition to cash benefits, all children must have access to basic services that are essential for their well-being and development. Specifically, the provision of basic services requires that all children have access to free early childhood education and care; free education, including school-based activities and a healthy meal each school day; free healthcare; healthy nutrition; and adequate housing. Moreover, ensuring decent work and family-friendly labour market policies can significantly alleviate child poverty by providing families and caregivers with stable incomes and opportunities for economic advancement.
Connecting cash transfers to information, knowledge and other services, often referred to as cash-plus programming, provides a critical entry point for system linkages. Such programming helps to address the multiple and often intersecting vulnerabilities and risks that children and their caregivers face, which cash transfers alone cannot address. In addition to the substantial evidence from countries across all regions regarding the impact of social protection on reducing poverty, there is recent evidence as to how programmes that link child protection services to cash transfers can improve outcomes for children. For example, a cash-plus programme in Zimbabwe has been found to decrease the number of young people and children exposed to physical violence. Combining a cash transfer with parenting interventions has been found to reduce overall child maltreatment in a study carried out in the Philippines. A home-visiting parenting intervention with a cash and public work component in Rwanda has been found to reduce both intimate partner violence and violence against children, in addition to significantly increasing fathers’ engagement in childcare and improving child development outcomes. Social protection must encompass a comprehensive package of cash, care and protection.
The integration of social protection and child protection systems is critical. A holistic approach to the social services workforce that encompasses social protection and child protection – rather than treating them as separate groups of workers in each sector – allows for better distribution of resources and planning of the workforce. Furthermore, social protection and child protection have several overlapping activities and structures, since they target the same populations, so there are positive benefits of scale and scope when they are planned together. Developing shared goals and joint planning between the ministries and agencies responsible for implementing social services at the national and subnational levels can be an effective tool. Preparing the social services workforce to deliver integrated social protection and child protection services requires a workforce that is duly qualified and trained, however. Evidence shows that effective performance management, regular coaching and the existence of accessible complaint mechanisms are effective in developing high-quality social services. Strengthening multi-agency case management can also optimize resources, reduce vulnerabilities and ensure effective referral between services. Robust information-sharing protocols between the social protection and child protection systems support the sound integration, planning and delivery of social services to children.
The integration and coordination of holistic social protection to children and their caregivers can also be facilitated through digitalization. Digitalization can reduce fragmented social protection interventions and duly link social protection recipients to other services, including health and education. It can also support more accurate and efficient services by improving data management and by providing better services to beneficiaries, including those in remote areas. At the same time, it is necessary to actively consider the risks of digitalization and implement appropriate mitigation measures. Among other steps, this means ensuring that digitalization does not add to the exclusion of those who cannot access online services or those whose births have not been registered. Strong data governance and data protection standards are paramount, given the very sensitive nature of the information gathered and retained through social protection systems. In addition, grievance and redress mechanisms must be established that allow the provision of online social protections to be assessed, in order to support improved accessibility, safety and transparency.
It is crucial to ensure the sustainability of social protection systems. One aspect of this is for child-sensitive social protection systems to be underpinned by rights-based legislation. A legislative basis usually makes social protection systems more stable in terms of financing and institutional frameworks, in addition to providing greater transparency and accountability. Such an approach also better guarantees that the requisite budgets are allocated and that they are less prone to discontinuation or contractionary reforms. Furthermore, anchoring child and family benefits in national law is essential to ensuring that all children and their caregivers – and primarily the most vulnerable – receive the benefits they need and to which they are entitled.
Another dimension of sustainability is ensuring that social protection systems are resilient and resistant to shock. Such shocks can include humanitarian crises, as well as economic and public health crises. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic highlighted that the poorest and most vulnerable groups and communities experience the worst impacts of such shocks, yet they are the least well-equipped to cope and are inadequately covered by social protection. At the same time, the pandemic showed the power of social protection. Governments were effectively able to use existing systems to channel urgent and emergency support. More than 200 countries and territories either introduced new programmes or rapidly adapted existing schemes – amounting to approximately 4,000 policy measures. Such social protection measures can provide an immediate financial lifeline along with economic and social stability in times of crisis. While dealing with acute crises, it is also important that humanitarian responses align with a broader and more long-term system-strengthening agenda, which may require changes to national social protection systems. Such changes may include the incorporation of a shock-responsive dimension into policy, financing and coordinating frameworks, as well as information management and service delivery mechanisms.
It is important for States to assess the impact of the measures used to advance child-sensitive social protection. While substantial resources are typically devoted to these actions, the impact on children is often not duly measured. Establishing accurate baselines and monitoring progress in tackling multidimensional child poverty must be assured. The European Child Guarantee is a good example of a monitoring and evaluation framework that tracks progress in preventing and combating child poverty and social exclusion, aligned with the 2030 Agenda. It has several core components. The framework traces the size and situation of the Child Guarantee target group and then monitors access to six services, namely, early childhood education and care, education (including school-based activities), at least one healthy meal per school day, healthcare, healthy nutrition and adequate housing. The monitoring framework is kept under review, to be updated as new data and indicators become available.
In addition, it is crucial to ensure a participatory approach to monitoring the implementation of social protection measures, which includes all beneficiaries, such as children and their caregivers. All actions to tackle poverty should be informed by the views and experiences of children, who are already leading initiatives to tackle child poverty and need to be involved in the poverty debate. Systematically consulting children will help policymakers to see things from their perspectives, which will enable them to ensure that social protection is duly child-sensitive.
Investing in children must remain a priority
Less than five years remain to keep the promise of the Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty, hunger and violence by 2030. Time is running out. Child poverty is increasing despite many actions taken to address it. The challenge is exacerbated by ongoing and overlapping crises such as conflict, forced displacement, climate change and food insecurity. Poverty undermines social cohesion, trust in institutions and social stability. It also drives social exclusion, exploitation and insecurity, thereby perpetuating the vicious cycle of violence against children. Around 1 billion children today live in multidimensional poverty. Strikingly, around 1 billion children are also exposed to violence every year.
Ensuring adequate social protection for children and their caregivers is not an optional extra. It must not be sacrificed due to fiscal constraints, a weakening of multilateral cooperation or a contraction in overseas development assistance. Investing in social protection is always a political choice. When the world grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately $19 trillion was mobilized in the global fiscal stimulus response.
Child-sensitive social protection must therefore not be seen as additional expenditure. It must be seen as an investment in sustainable, people-centred development, through a life-cycle approach starting in early childhood. As highlighted above, more and more countries are adopting such an approach. They are investing more in wide social care reform that is duly linked with child protection, paying attention to the most vulnerable children and their caregivers. In addition, there is increasing use of peer learning, exchange of good practices and effective bilateral and multilateral cooperation, for example through the Pathfinding Global Alliance on Ending Violence against Children. The international community must sustain and strengthen this momentum to ensure that all children have a good and equal start in life to realize their full potential.