Children in humanitarian settings are especially vulnerable. During armed conflict, natural disasters and other emergencies, children may be forced to flee their homes, some torn from their families and exposed to exploitation and abuse along the way. They risk injury and death. They may be recruited by armed groups. Especially for girls, the threat of gender-based violence soars.

Harmful cultural practices pose another grave risk in various parts of the world. Hundreds of millions of girls have been subjected to child marriage and female genital mutilation – even though both are internationally recognized human rights violations.

Illustrative image (internet)

No matter the circumstance, every child has the right to be protected from violence. Child protection systems connect children to vital social services and fair justice systems – starting at birth. They provide care to the most vulnerable, including children uprooted by conflict or disaster; victims of child labour or trafficking; and those who live with disabilities or in alternative care. Protecting children means protecting their physical and psychosocial needs to safeguard their futures. 

It is necessary for the competent agencies and organizations to  urgently deploy programmes and action plans on child care and protection in a comprehensive manner to fix shortcomings, ensuring children's rights to comprehensive physical and mental development.

Illustrative image (internet)

Children should be safe from violence and be able to grow up with their families. They shouldn’t have to miss school. They shouldn’t be discriminated against because of where they come from. They should be able to feel at home – wherever they find themselves and wherever home is.

UNICEF works around the world to help protect the rights of migrant and displaced children. We provide life-saving humanitarian supplies in refugee camps. We run child-friendly spaces – safe places where children on the move can play, where mothers can rest and feed their babies in private, where separated families can reunite. We support national and local governments to put in place laws, policies, systems and services that are inclusive of all children and address the specific needs of migrant and displaced children, helping them thrive.

UNICEF has been active in Vietnam since 1975 and our programmes aim to promote the respect for, protect and fulfill the rights of all children. With equity at our core, UNICEF advances the inclusion of the most vulnerable children, including those from ethnic minorities. Our current Country Programme of Cooperation contributes to Vietnam’s Socio-economic Development Strategy (2021–2030) and the National Action Plan for Children 2021– 2030, which prioritize equitable social and human development and adaptation to climate change. And in line with our mandate in the Convention, we continue to provide technical advice or assistance to claim-holders and duty-bearers, with special attention to the Concluding Observation of the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

UNICEF continues to work with the Government and other stakeholders in addressing challenges that are putting children’s lives and development at risk. Nutrition is a key priority, and we provide technical support and therapeutic products, while advocating for increased attention and resources –and this involves including therapeutic products in health insurance for children. We continue to support with essential maternal and new-born care, access to clean water and sanitation, social assistance and the protection of every child against violence, abuse and exploitation. In the area of education, key priorities are further improvement of inclusive education and ensuring that every child acquires digital skills, which are essential in today’s world. Through schools, we are also supporting mental well-being promotion, prevention and programming.

With climate-related impacts and disasters on the rise, we are also working on strengthening child-sensitive, climate-resilient social services and capacity for effective disaster-risk reduction and humanitarian responses.UNICEF’s support is materialized by providing technical assistance for system strengthening, building national capacity, testing innovative solutions and supporting their scale-up–with a focus on digital transformation, increasing awareness and facilitating social norms change to advance children’s rights.

Partnerships are key to achieving these aims. In addition to cooperation with Government, mass organizations, key stakeholders and development partners, we aim at leveraging the potential of the private sector to advance children’s rights through public-private and shared-value partnerships that promote family-friendly business policies and the protection of young workers.
Smart demand, supply, and use of data help us drive better results for children. When the right data are in the right hands at the right time, decisions can be better informed, more equitable and more likely to protect children’s rights.

Vietnam has made great efforts to monitor children’s well-being and development. To support this endeavour, UNICEF advocated for a more sustainable development goal (SDG) - and child-focused revised Statistical Law by recommending and technically assisting the inclusion of 14 child-focused indicators into the National List of Indicators for regular reporting and monitoring by the government. Notably, these indicators include multidimensional child poverty rate, proportion of population suffering from violence disaggregated by age group, proportion of population having ICT skills, proportion of people aged 5 – 17 years engaged in labour.

UNICEF welcomes the efforts to develop a set of child-related indicators in harmony with international standards to assess children’s well-being. With strong technical expertise and more than 70 years of global experience in gathering data for and about children, UNICEF can assist Vietnam to use internationally recognized definition and calculation method for monitoring and reporting on children-related SDG indicators. Through our guidance and tools, we can support practitioners and decisions-makers to produce and handle data to better serve children.

UNICEF is also recommending a diversification of the data sources and information for official monitoring and reporting, instead of relying solely on government-generated data. This diversification would help to build national data analysis capacity for monitoring the progress of child rights by triangulating governmental data with non-governmental sources. This approach could enhance the richness and depth of evidence available for policymaking and decision-making in the best interest of children in Vietnam.

Minister Dao Ngoc Dung affirmed that Vietnam’s Government and MOLISA committed continuously accompany with UNICEF in the programs with the aim at completing the legal framework and policies in the work of implementing children right, especially focusing on fighting against and strictly processing the cases of child sexual abuse.

Recognizing the good cooperation between the two sides for the past time, especially in the field of child protection and care, Minister Dao Ngoc Dung said that with the goal of ensuring all children benefit from basic services and social support system to have a healthy and safe environment for children to develop their potentials and contribute to building prosperous Vietnam in the future.  The Minister hoped that UNICEF would support and consult to Vietnam about issues related to child protection and care. The Ministry of Labour - Invalids and Social Affairs will acquire and study for the most appropriate approach to the recommendations of the Heads representative and ​members from UNICEF.