This study examines child safeguarding practices in Catholic dioceses in Kenya, finding that although safeguarding policies and support systems exist, only a small proportion of church personnel have received formal training. The research highlights ongoing risks—including sexual abuse, child labour, neglect, and early marriage—and identifies resource constraints, cultural resistance, and institutional barriers as key challenges to effective safeguarding.

This article explores the experiences of foster carers supporting unaccompanied asylum-seeking and trafficked children (UASTC) in the U.K., highlighting challenges such as limited specialist training, the emotional toll of managing risk, and navigating the asylum process. Despite the small sample, findings suggest the need for trauma-informed care pathways, tailored training and supervision, peer support networks, and further research into UASTC experiences across different placements.

In Myanmar, concerns have been raised that clientelism may be facilitating the recruitment of children into unregistered facilities, putting children at risk. This study uses clientelism theory and examines relationships between stakeholders involved in forty-five residential care facilities in Myanmar. It finds clientelism as a distinct driver of child institutionalization in Myanmar and as a mechanism that facilitates the recruitment and admission of children into unregulated residential care facilities, undermining their rights and safety.

This article offers an extensive theoretical and analytical interrogation of dominant trafficking discourses, with particular emphasis on Ghana, Nigeria, and the wider West African sub-region. It argues that prevailing global and national anti-trafficking frameworks often obscure children’s agency, misrecognise culturally embedded practices such as fostering and labour migration, and produce unintended harms through criminalisation and rescue-oriented interventions.

This book offers a comprehensive exploration of the institutional, legal, and social frameworks surrounding child protection in India. Anchored in a multidisciplinary approach, the book brings together insights from law, social work, psychology, education, and public policy to examine how various systems interact in addressing the issues related to protection of children from abuse, neglect, trafficking, and exploitation.

This commentary critiques Western-led global orphan care interventions, arguing that donor-driven aid, institutionalization, and voluntourism often perpetuate trauma, family separation, and an “orphan economy” despite good intentions. Drawing on lived experience, research, and ethical reflection, it calls for trauma-informed, family-preserving, and culturally respectful approaches that prioritize children’s rights, dignity, and long-term wellbeing.

This paper explores the issue of child trafficking in Odisha, India, with a particular focus on the heightened vulnerability of children in tribal regions and the legal measures implemented to prevent trafficking and protect victims during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

This article examines how Terre des Hommes Netherlands used a participatory co-design process to develop thematic programmes addressing sexual exploitation, child labour, and exploitation in humanitarian settings as part of its Listen Up! Strategy (2023–2030). By integrating insights from research, children, staff, and local partners through workshops, storytelling, and problem analysis, the process combined academic knowledge with lived experiences to create context-specific, evidence-informed interventions and Theories of Change.

This study explores the experiences of nine young Thai adults who grew up in a Christian orphanage supported by foreign volunteer tourists, highlighting the impact of these visits on the children. Findings reveal that while orphanages often used children to attract financial support, most volunteers provided fleeting attention, leaving children disappointed and vulnerable, emphasizing the need for orphanage models that prioritize the children’s needs over tourist interests.

This endline report reviews changes in child trafficking and child labor across four districts in Sierra Leone between 2019 and 2024, drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data. It summarizes major findings, outlines key recommendations, and provides an overview of the study’s methodology and program phases from baseline to endline.