The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has intensified their campaign on child protection program.
Child protection is one of the three key programs of the 2008-2010 country programs for Sierra Leone. Moving away from the emergency response that prevailed during and directly after the war, UNICEF has taken, over the past one year and in the new 2008-2010 program, a major shift in its child protection program in terms of taking a more strategic position to support the government in building a protective environment for children in Sierra Leone.
According to the UNICEF Deputy Country Representative Madam Garnish, 2010 also integrates child protection issues into the Child Survival and the Education programs as they are an important contributing factor to reduction of child and maternal mortality and to increase access, retention, and completion of primary education.
She cited improving the legal and policy frameworks for the protection of all children, enhancing capacity of systems and structures for protection of children and increasing the knowledge and understanding of child protection issues in Sierra Leone, as some of UNICEF’s interventions in child protection. At present, the Deputy Country representative went on, UNICEF is giving support to national policy and legal framework and advocacy on child protection, building the capacity of institutions and systems for protection of all children and increasing the knowledge and understanding of child protection issues in Sierra Leone.
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Newspaper in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
