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Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

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The Collaborative Forum

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March 28, 2022

Responding To: Innovating Protection for Children at Risk in the Americas

Coordinating Faith-Based Responses for Child Protection

Eleonora Mura, Coordinator Partnerships and Resource Mobilization, The Alliance for the Protection of Children

Working with faith actors and utilizing faith-sensitive approaches to child protection is particularly fundamental in the Americas, where faith actors contribute significantly to the comprehensive development of children. Spiritual development is an important protective factor in situations of adversity or risk, including situations of violence, and can be encouraged through the delivery of essential services, including education and health.

The Alliance for the Protection of the Children (APN) is a multifaith and multi-country coalition of over 55 faith-based organizations and religious communities. It was created in 2017 to protect children on the move and vulnerable children from violence, trafficking, gang recruitment, and organized crime.

The work of the alliance addresses several of the root causes of migration and poverty with a geographical focus in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico. The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to upward trends in violence and illegal migration. According to the Humanium 2020 report, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala are among the top 10 countries in the world in terms of homicides, corruption, drug trafficking, and gang violence. Children and young people are the most affected by violence in the subregion; however, public opinion tends to criminalize them and hold them responsible for insecurity in communities.

Violence and its impact on children is a complex phenomenon that is explained by multiple interrelated causes and effects. The main consequences of violence include 1) an increase in the number of children and adolescents from the most vulnerable sectors who emigrate to Mexico and the United States, and who run the risk of being victims of more violence on the migration routes; and 2) the increase in the number of children and adolescents who join gangs or become involved in drug trafficking. Gangs in the subregion act as a reference group, providing children with a sense of belonging, identity, economic support, and protection.

The aim of the alliance is to reduce the likelihood that children who live in contexts where violence is prevalent in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico are recruited by or are victims of organized crime. The alliance focuses on secondary prevention, with specific measures targeting groups of children who are identified as at risk.

These three strategies guide the overall approach:

  • Reduce the risk factors that lead to the development of violent behavior in children or make it easier for them to get involved with or become victims of criminal groups.
  • Increase protective and resilience factors, such as healthy lifestyles and environments, psychosocial services, and specific protection, as well as spiritual development.
  • Build resilience in communities affected by violence​.

The work focuses on three groups of children at high risk of being recruited by or becoming victims of gangs and organized crime along migration routes or other situations of vulnerability:

  • Children living in communities controlled by gangs and at risk of being recruited, and/or victims of gangs and drug traffickers​;
  • Migrant children at risk of becoming victims of organized violence along migration routes, including trafficking and smuggling;
  • Children with incarcerated parents.

In 2020, APN launched its Violence Prevention Guide, developed through a nearly three-year participatory process that included consultations with children and the identification of promising practices in the region. The guide proposes evidence-based strategies and concrete actions that faith actors can take to prevent violence at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels.

The guide is centered around six key approaches that inform the work of faith actors to strengthen child protection in the region:

  • Human rights approach: Recognize the rights of all children and adolescents. Acknowledge the role of states as duty bearers and other actors (including faith communities) as jointly responsible for respecting, protecting, and ensuring the rights of children and adolescents.​
  • Gender approach: Recognize that violence affects boys and girls in different ways. Analyze and understand unequal power relations between men and women, deconstruct the macho culture, and work on the causes of inequality through measures of equity and justice.
  • Systemic approach: Address violence and its causes within the specific contexts and environments in which it is generated. Place the child in the center and identify all the elements, actors, and relationships between them. Prevent violence at individual, interpersonal, and community levels. Promote intersectoral articulation and cooperation, including work with civil society, the government, religious communities, the education sector, etc.
  • Psychosocial approach: Analyze people's beliefs, feelings, and actions. Encourage personal, family, and community accompaniment and engagement aimed at re-establishing social-emotional well-being of individuals and social networks.
  • Life Course approach: Analyze and address the different factors and experiences that cumulatively influence a boy, girl, and adolescent throughout the course of their life. Consider family, social, economic, environmental, and cultural influences.
  • Ethical-spiritual approach: Affirm human dignity and respect for the sanctity of life in all its dimensions and generate opportunities to nurture values ​​of respect, empathy, solidarity, responsibility, and reconciliation. Support the building of relationships and bridges of trust. Nurture the spiritual development of children and adolescents.

The guide informs the actions of the alliance and is structured around four pillars:

  1. Prevention: Generate collective action for the prevention of violence through national and subregional educational processes for children, adolescents, and their families and in coordination with faith-based and other organizations.​
  2. Protection of child victims: Strengthen the protective role of communities and faith-based organizations in the subregion, particularly for child victims of violence, gangs, and organized crime.
  3. Advocacy: Influence local, national, and subregional policies that contribute to the prevention of violence and the protection of children and adolescents from gangs and organized crime. Increase public investment in the prevention of violence, protection for children on the move, and the prohibition of physical and humiliating punishment of children in all contexts.
  4. Knowledge management: Generate a space for the exchange of experiences, research, and learning on violence against children in the sub-region, for APN members and other faith-based organizations.

The Alliance for the Protection of the Children (APN) is a multifaith and multi-country coalition of more than 55 faith-based organizations and religious communities. It was created in 2017 to protect children on the move and vulnerable children from violence, trafficking, gang recruitment, and organized crime. For more information, visit www.alianzappn.org.

Other Responses

Juan Pacay
Wuqub' Tz'ikin

Juan Edwin Pacay Mendoza, Coordinator of the Kajib’ Ix Program, Vida Digna Collective Association; Maya Tz’utujil, Family-Community Organizer | March 28, 2022