Publications

Within and across borders in Europe, children are trafficked into a variety of exploitative situations, violating their human rights and threatening their survival and development. This report assesses the legal, policy and implementation frameworks in place to address child trafficking in the region. Covering more than 50 countries/entities, the report investigates the complexity of the trafficking phenomenon, and maps trafficking patterns and targeted legal and policy responses. Child trafficking is addressed in the framework of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with a focus on prevention, protection and empowerment.

Within and across borders in Europe, children are trafficked into a variety of exploitative situations, violating their human rights and threatening their survival and development. This report assesses the legal, policy and implementation frameworks in place to address child trafficking in the region. Covering more than 50 countries/entities, the report investigates the complexity of the trafficking phenomenon, and maps trafficking patterns and targeted legal and policy responses. Child trafficking is addressed in the framework of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with a focus on prevention, protection and empowerment.

La traite des êtres humaines affecte presque toutes les nations d'Afrique pour lesquelles nous disposons de données, que ce soit les pays d'origine ou celles qui servent de destination. Le rapport étudie les informations recueillies dans 53 pays africains et procède à une analyse des schémas et des racines profondes de la traite, ainsi que des pratiques et mesures efficaces prises au niveau national et régional. On a pu observer les phénomènes suivants: la traite est facilitée par l'effondrement du milieu protecteur de l'enfant suite à un conflit armé, des difficultés économiques ou des pratiques discriminatoires. Les attitudes and pratiques traditionelles, le mariage précoce et le fait que les naissances ne soient pas enregistrées rendent estrêmement difficile l'identification des victimes.

There is a growing global consensus on the need to promote family-based alternatives to institutional care for children. No residential institution, no matter how well meaning, can replace the family environment so essential to every child. This Innocenti Insight examines efforts to prevent the institutionalization of children in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Italy and Spain, focusing on both public and private initiatives, as well as local and national policies. The study highlights the fact that policies to discourage institutionalization are not enough. The right climate is needed to create alternatives, including raising public awareness.

The trafficking of children is one of the gravest violations of human rights in the world today. Every year, hundreds of thousands of children are smuggled across borders and sold as mere commodities. Their survival and development are threatened, and their rights to education, to health, to grow up within a family, to protection from exploitation and abuse, are denied. The UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre has worked with the UNICEF Regional Office for West and Central Africa to identify effective policy solutions to this issue in eight countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Mali, Nigeria and Togo. This study focuses on a region that is badly affected by the phenomenon, aiming to increase understanding of this reality and maximize the effectiveness of measures to overcome it. It illustrates the importance of field-driven research and the essential role that research plays in policy formulation and the proper design of programmes.

La traite d’enfants est une des plus graves violations des droits humains dans le monde actuel. Chaque année, des centaines de milliers d’enfants sont transportés clandestinement au-delà des frontières et vendus comme de simples marchandises. Leur survie et leur développement sont menacés, et ils sont privés de leurs droits à l’éducation, à la santé, à grandir au sein d’une famille, à la protection contre l’exploitation et les abus.

Brazil has made concrete its commitment to the principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the creation of a number of State Programmes of Action. This ‘decentralised’ strategy marks an unprecedented step in a country with a strong tradition of ‘top-down’ federal thinking and limited experience of participatory planning. This paper examines the impact this novel approach has had upon the situation of children and adolescents. Recent achievements include the eradication of polio, a significant reduction in the incidence of measles and neonatal tetanus and an improvement in the management of public schools.

The Egyptian government’s approach to internal development issues had traditionally been very much the product of a ‘top-down’ way of thinking. It was widely assumed that local and regional authorities lacked the necessary technical and resource-allocation know-how. All this changed in 1994 with the drawing-up of policies that were to kick-start a drive toward ‘decentralisation’. This paper sought to anticipate the obstacles and opportunities that might emerge in the future of the process.

The 1990 World Summit for Children set in motion the development of what were called ‘National Programmes of Action’ in a number of countries. The Vietnamese government has taken its programme a step further than most, having actively encouraged the growth of sub-programmes at the provincial level. This paper examines the then current stage in the country’s experience of this ‘decentralisation’ process; the opportunities it had created and the difficulties hindering its continued progress.