Millions of children are on the move across international borders – fleeing violence and conflict, disaster or poverty, in pursuit of a better life. Hundreds of thousands move on their own. When they encounter few opportunities to move legally, children resort to dangerous routes and engage smugglers to help them cross borders. Serious gaps in the laws, policies and services meant to protect children on the move further leave them bereft of protection and care. Deprived, unprotected, and often alone, children on the move can become easy prey for traffickers and others who abuse and exploit them.

Millions of children are on the move across international borders – fleeing violence and conflict, disaster or poverty, in pursuit of a better life. Hundreds of thousands move on their own. When they encounter few opportunities to move legally, children resort to dangerous routes and engage smugglers to help them cross borders. Serious gaps in the laws, policies and services meant to protect children on the move further leave them bereft of protection and care. Deprived, unprotected, and often alone, children on the move can become easy prey for traffickers and others who abuse and exploit them.

A world free from child poverty: A guide to the tasks to achieve the vision is an attempt to harness our knowledge and experience to support national processes to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1 on Ending Poverty, which includes children explicitly for the first time in global poverty goals and, in doing so, support all the SDGs which are so crucial to the realization of children’s rights.

This locally driven research analyses how institutional, community, interpersonal and individual factors interact to affect violence in children’s lives.