Child Protection
Liberia as a country faced significant challenges in terms of child protection. Some specific issues Liberia as a country is faced with include Child labor, Child trafficking, Sexual exploitation, teenage pregnancy, and abuse, Education, and Child marriage among other core child protection issues. Tackling child protection issues requires a comprehensive and coordinated approach that involves multiple stakeholders,
including government agencies, non-governmental organizations, community leaders, and families.As part of our consolidated efforts, Youth Crime Watch of Liberia empowers children/adolescents through its different programs to give them a safe space to learn and grow into responsible citizens. Our approach includes Monitoring and reporting, Collaboration, awareness-raising campaigns, and interventions to address poverty and social inequality that can lead to child abuse and exploitation providing parents with parenting skills and support and engaging with communities to promote child protection.
Impact
Through our different projects’ implementations, Youth Crime Watch of Liberia in partnership with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection with funding from UNICEF has instituted the following:
Child Welfare Committees
The child welfare committees are established, trained, and supported to follow up on cases related to child abuse and other cases of violence against children in communities in Margibi and Bong Counties.
Peer Educators’ Clubs
The Peer Educators’ Clubs constitute adolescents ages 17-below who were recruited and trained by Youth Crime Watch of Liberia with funding support from UNICEF. These adolescents were trained as trainer of trainers to train adolescents (considered as peers under the project) in their different communities in conflict mitigations, and basic life skills, using a standardized foundational life skills training manual developed by the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Youth, and Sports, and UNICEF. The clubs are established in communities in Montserrado, Margibi, and Bong Counties respectively.
Referral Pathways
The lack of referral pathways to report crimes, and cases of violence against women, girls, and children has led to many cases of crimes, violence against women, girls, and children being ignored and not reported. This leaves survivors even more vulnerable to perpetrators. Cases of violence against women, girls, and children and many other gender-related cases have been compromised in the absence of referral pathways. The intervention of Youth Crime Watch of Liberia referral pathways link survivors to service providers (Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, the Ministry of Health, the Women and Children Division of the Liberia National Police) and helps effectuate the reporting system to track cases of these crimes in communities. To ensure the effective use of the referral pathways, Youth Crime Watch of Liberia provides training in the usage of the pathways and creates awareness in different communities of the use of the referral pathways.
Parenting Skills Training
Family is the fundamental institution to support child protection, the absence of excellent and responsible parenting results in children being vulnerable and puts them at risk of abusers. Children being breadwinners, limited communication between children and parents, and parents instilling harsh and uncalled-for discipline, among other actions shy children away from openly communicating potential dangers they are faced with. The need for parental Skills Training to help parents understand the rights and needs of the child at different ages for better communication with and support to their children became a paramount focal for our Parenting Skills Training program. Skills Training helps parents instill best practices and behaviors in their children. The training session focuses on capacity building for parents and caregivers through training on the methods of positive parenting, how to cultivate positive parenting in the family, and help children build positivity.