Child protection and safeguarding research
Prevalence, drivers and pathway research on the harms that reach African children: trafficking, child labour, sexual exploitation and early marriage.
Commissioned by: Children's departments and county children's offices, UNICEF and child-focused INGOs, national child protection authorities, education ministries, foundations and their implementing partners.
What we research
Child trafficking
Recruitment, movement and exploitation of children within and across borders. We map recruitment points, corridors and the moments at which a child can still be reached, rather than reporting a national figure that no one can act on.
Child labour
Including the worst forms defined under ILO Convention 182. Which sectors rely on it, at what ages and hours, and what it costs a child in schooling. Measured against household income, because withdrawal without replacement income does not hold.
Child sexual exploitation and abuse
Including online grooming and exploitation, and exploitation in travel and tourism. Evidence is drawn from adult, institutional and case-record sources wherever it can be obtained without questioning a child.
Child, early and forced marriage
Prevalence by ward, the drivers sustaining it, and what measurably shifts it. Read alongside school retention, bride price and household economics rather than treated as a matter of attitude alone.
Each is measured on its own terms and read against the others, because the same child is rarely exposed to only one of them.
Questions we answer
- ?Which sectors here rely on child labour, and what would move a household to withdraw a child from work?
- ?Where along a trafficking route can a child be reached before harm occurs?
- ?What is the real prevalence of early marriage in this ward, and what measurably shifts it?
- ?Does the referral pathway hold once a case of exploitation is actually reported?
- ?What do children themselves say about where and when they feel unsafe?
- ?Has the programme reduced harm, or only raised awareness of it?
What we measure
- ·Prevalence and risk-factor estimation for trafficking, labour, sexual exploitation and early marriage
- ·Trafficking route mapping: recruitment points, movement corridors and interception opportunities
- ·Child labour by sector and hours worked, read against school attendance and household income
- ·Online child sexual exploitation: exposure, grooming contact and whether it is ever reported
- ·Child, early and forced marriage prevalence by ward, with the drivers ranked
- ·Referral pathway tracing, from first report to case resolution
- ·Consultation with children and caregivers, run to child-safe standards
- ·Alternative care mapping: kinship, foster and institutional placement
How we field it
Modes are chosen by what the question needs, not by what is cheapest. Read the method.
What you receive
Prevalence and pathway findings a child protection authority can act on, with every instrument, consent protocol and referral route documented to the standard an ethics committee expects.
With the dataset, the cross-tabulations and the method statement. The data is yours outright.
How we protect the people we interview
Research involving children is not ordinary fieldwork and we do not run it as though it were. These conditions are not optional extras and we will decline a study that cannot meet them.
- Ethical clearance before fieldwork. Instruments, consent forms and protocols go to a recognised research ethics committee, and to the relevant national authority where one is required.
- Informed caregiver consent and separate child assent. A child may decline or stop at any point, without giving a reason and without it being reported back.
- Enumerators are vetted, police-cleared and trained in child-safe interviewing before deployment. Interviewers are matched to the respondent where the subject requires it.
- A written referral pathway agreed with the local child protection authority before a single interview takes place. Any disclosure of harm is referred the same day, whatever it does to the sample.
- No child is identifiable in any dataset, transcript, quotation or report we hand over, including to the commissioning client.
- Do no harm governs the design. Where a question cannot be asked safely, it is not asked, and the report says so rather than leaving a gap unexplained.
Where we field
54 African markets, to ward level where the administrative geography allows it. Kenya is mapped to all 47 counties, 290 constituencies and 1,450 wards.
Start with a scoping call.
Thirty minutes to fix what the study has to answer, the markets it covers and what it will cost. Nothing goes to field before you sign off the design.
Request a scoping call