Child Protection And Household Vulnerability

This paper explores child protection based on three factors; child abuse, child labour and child substance abuse. The analysis is based on a cohort of 17,848 vulnerbale households and the children in therein studied over a period of four years under the “sustainable comprehensive repsonses for vulnerable children and tehir families project” implemented in rural Uganda between 2011 and 2017. We find overall child protection factors mentioned above improved over the four years alongside household vulnerability. Howveer we observe that compared to the rest of the vulnerable households, the children who had experience child abuse, used susbanctes and alcohol and experience child labour were less likely to transition out of vulnerability compared to the others. We also found out that these children were less likely to be enrolled in school over the foru years and were more likely to be absent from school. We conclude that poor child protection indtcaors amongst the vulnerable children compound their household and individual vulnerability and increase the likelihood that their basic rights will be violated. We recommend that child protection issues, and child rights specifically should be brought at the forefront of all child protection interventions.