"Humanitarian and development efforts require a very clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities towards the care and protection of children.The Keeping Children Safe Coalition provides the necessary standards and means of meeting them for agencies and organisations working with and for children. It provides a good basis for the development of effective measures to prevent and respond to violence: from awareness raising strategies to safeguarding measures. It offers an excellent opportunity not only for the improvement of the quality and professionalism of those working with children, but most importantly, it will help to achieve a greater impact for children."
The Keeping Children Safe Coalition is currently made up of seventeen agencies committed to creating a safer world for children. We recognise that all organisations coming into contact with children have a fundamental duty of care towards them, and we acknowledge our responsibilities to keep children safe in both relief and development interventions.
Our organisations are committed to child protection and aim to achieve the highest level of protection for children with whom we come into contact and to work towards achieving the international standards developed by the KCS Coalition. We commit ourselves to consistently work towards achieving them and we expect to be held to account accordingly.
We invite other agencies to adopt these standards and join us in working towards their achievement.
Abuse of children across the world occurs on a staggering scale. It is estimated that 40,000,000 children are abused each year.Much more can be done to protect them, which is why the Keeping Children Safe Coalition has developed a set of tools to help organisations working in developing countries to keep children safe.
Agencies working for and with children also have a responsibility to make their operations safe for the children they are in contact with. Working for such organisations gives adults who seek to harm children power, status and opportunity to abuse children that they would otherwise not have. Organisations must address these protection challenges.
"Humanitarian and development efforts require a very clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities towards the care and protection of children.The Keeping Children Safe Coalition provides the necessary standards and means of meeting them for agencies and organisations working with and for children. It provides a good basis for the development of effective measures to prevent and respond to violence: from awareness raising strategies to safeguarding measures. It offers an excellent opportunity not only for the improvement of the quality and professionalism of those working with children, but most importantly, it will help to achieve a greater impact for children."