Save the Children’s work on child protection and child rights in Mozambique and South Sudan

Abstract

Background Save the Children Norway (SCN) and its partners are implementing an extensive programme to support children’s education, child protection and child rights in 16 countries. The programme is running from 2019 through 2023 and is funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). This review focuses on two of the three main programme areas – child protection and child rights – and on how Save the Children (SC) works to reach marginalised children within these programme areas. The third programme area – education – also has components related to child protection and child rights, but those aspects are not covered here. The analysis and recommendations are based on data from two countries, Mozambique and South Sudan. The countries were selected because they represent child protection programmes with either a strong emphasis on child marriage and teenage pregnancy (Mozambique) or corporal punishment (South Sudan). The review has been commissioned by Norad.

This review would not have been possible without the help several organizations and individuals. We would first like to extend our thanks to Wouter Vandenhole for acting as the quality assurance officer and providing excellent comments to the draft report. We would also like to thank all our interlocutors at Save the Children’s headquarters in Norway and in the field for shedding light on the efforts to improve children´s protections and fulfil their rights. In Mozambique these include: country office staff, PLASOC, Association Bvute re Rufaro, Girl Child Rights, ROSC and the 3R platform, CECAP, the National Human Rights Commission, the Child helpline, the Provincial Service on Social Issues in Manica, and the Chief Prosecutor for the Provincial Reference Group in Manica. In South Sudan: the Child Rights Coalition, the Human Rights Commissioner, Members of Parliament, Ministries of Gender Child and Social Welfare, Ministries of Education, The Organization Chil