Child Protection Systems - Eurochild’s achievements in 2024
Annual Report 2024.
The past year has marked significant advancements in the EU framework linked to child protection across Europe, with Eurochild playing a key role in shaping policies and fostering discussions.
Eurochild, together with our member Hope and Homes for Children and 10 other civil society organisations, played a key role in achieving a major advocacy success for the child rights community. In April 2024, the European Parliament adopted the revised EU Anti-Trafficking Directive, marking a pivotal step in the fight against child trafficking. The Directive, overall, strengthens measures to prevent and tackle child trafficking. Notably, it recognises that children in institutional care are at additional risk of trafficking—an amendment we have strongly advocated for over the past year. The Directive now obliges Member States to introduce specific measures to protect child victims.
Eurochild played a central role in shaping the European Commission’s Recommendation on developing and strengthening integrated child protection systems in the best interests of the child, published in May 2024. Numerous suggestions from Eurochild and its members have been integrated into the text. Our contribution is extensively recognised in the staff working document accompanying the Recommendation, with Eurochild referenced 32 times.
Eurochild also contributed to thought leadership to strengthen child protection systems. We co-organised and moderated a study session, Preventing institutionalisation of children: strengthening families and building community-based alternative care. The study session highlighted how EU policy and funds, in particular the European Child Guaranteesupport the prevention of institutionalisation and foster the well-being of children and their families.
Eurochild discussed the EU policy and legislative framework related to the reform of child care and protection systems in the conference Achieving Dynamic and Resilient Systems for Protection, Healing, and Justice for Child Victims of Trafficking, organised by the Council of the Baltic Sea States and Child Circle. We discussed with key stakeholders, including the United Nations, European Union, Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and civil society organisations, how to improve protection mechanisms for children at risk of trafficking, especially those in vulnerable situations. At the FEDAIA Forum, Eurochild joined discussions on deinstitutionalisation in Catalonia, and the challenges and the contradictions that can be encountered along the way.
In 2024, Eurochild launched two new transnational projects, together with our members and allies, to strengthen integrated child protection systems across Europe:
- The GUIDE (Supporting Guardians of Unaccompanied Children) project aims to strengthen national guardianship systems. It provides support for guardians of unaccompanied refugee children with disabilities and/or those at risk of developmental delays in five countries (BG - with our member National Network for Children, EL, SK, IT, and PL). The project in particular supports children from Ukraine, including those evacuated from institutional care.
- Daphne-CHILD is a 3-year sub-granting and capacity building programme to support CSOs address violence against children. Eurochild will sub-grant €1.3 million across nine countries: BG, EL, HU, IE, PT, RO, RS, ES, and UA), with our member Terre des hommes Lausanne Foundation leading on dissemination.
Finally, Eurochild strengthened important developments and policy-informing research for children growing up in alternative care:
- Successfully including indicators for children in alternative care in the Child Guarantee’s EU monitoring framework, the first ever EU framework to gather data on these children (January 2024).
- UNICEF’s White Paper: The role of boarding schools for vulnerable children in the Europe and Central Asia region, represented by individual member Maud Stiernet (April 2024).
- UNICEF’s TransMonEE report: Pathways to better protection: Taking stock of the situation of children in alternative care in Europe and Central Asia (January 2024)
- UNICEF’s White Paper: Development of foster care in the Europe and Central Asia, represented by individual members Robbie Gilligan and Maria Herczog (April 2024)
- Eurochild, together with Maria Herczog, are advising UNICEF on the drafting of global standardised statistical classification of alternative care of children (November 2024).
Photo from the GUIDE meeting in Bulgaria.
