Child Protection and Household Vulnerability: A Longitudinal Analysis of Child Rights and Protection Amongst Vulnerable Households and their Families in Rural Uganda.

Abstract
This article explores child protection and child rights based on four factors: child abuse, child labour, child substance abuse and child enrolment in school in the context of a vulnerable rural population. The analysis is based on a cohort of 17,848 vulnerable households and the children therein studied over a period of four years under the “sustainable comprehensive responses for vulnerable children and their families project” implemented in rural Uganda between 2011 and 2017. We find out that overall, child protection factors mentioned above improved over the four years alongside household vulnerability, but they were still unacceptably high to enable the realization of child rights in their totally. We observe that compared to the rest of the vulnerable households, the children who had experienced child abuse, used substances and alcohol and experience child labour and were targeted with child protection intervention, were more likely to transition out of vulnerability compared to the others. However, we found out that these children were less likely to be enrolled in school over the four years and were more likely to be absent from school. We conclude that poor child protection indicators 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.
Description
Keywords
Child protection, Child abuse, Child labour, Vulnerability and child substance abuse
Citation
Walugembe, P., Larok, R., Nakibuuka, N., Nyeko, J. P., Thembo, J., Wamala, R., & Misinde, C. (2018). Child Protection And Household Vulnerability. Canadian Journal of Children's Rights/Revue canadienne des droits des enfants, 5(1), 254-272.
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