In 2024, the 1st Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children (VAC) brought together 103 governments to make formal commitments to prevent and respond to VAC. This review analyses the pledges announced at the time of the conference, while acknowledging that some governments may have subsequently refined or expanded their commitments, as noted in the limitations. With a focus on how alternative care, family strengthening and family-based care feature within broader VAC strategies. Recognising that violence is both a driver for entry into care and a significant factor within care systems, the review explores trends, gaps and emerging priorities across national contexts. It identifies where countries have made explicit commitments to care reform, highlights financial and accountability mechanisms, and considers the implications for children in alternative care. The findings underscore the need to integrate care reform as a central pillar in efforts to end VAC globally.
Justin Rogers, Aisling Ledwith, Florence Martin et al.
Background Accurate recognition of movement disorders (MDs) phenomenology remains a demanding task in pediatric practice, compounded by mixed and evolving motor presentations, inter-examiner expertise variability, and the scarcity of structured digital tools validated across age groups. A child with combined MDs may receive different phenomenological diagnoses from different examiners, with direct consequences for etiological guidance, treatment planning, neuromodulation candidacy, and longitudinal monitoring. Video-based examination is already central to expert practice, but its systematic analysis remains frequently inaccessible because of limited human resources. Objective To develop and externally test a video-based framework for simultaneous detection of hyperkinetic MDs phenomenologies: dystonia, tremor, myoclonus, chorea, athetosis, ballismus, stereotypies, and tics using routine clinical recordings, with external, cross-cohort transfer from adult to pediatric populations. Methods In this proof-of-concept study, the framework combines markerless pose estimation, kinematic descriptors, and a pretrained foundation model. A shared predictive backbone was developed on 21 adults with confirmed hyperkinetic MDs and 4 healthy controls. External validation was performed on an independent cohort: a real-world pediatric sample ( n = 12, monogenic combined MDs). For the external dataset, the backbone was deployed without retraining; lightweight calibration adjusted only the final subject-level decision step using a clinician-labeled small representative subset of patients. Results After local calibration of the decision layer on the clinician-selected subset, performance improved on the held-out pediatric patients ( n = 7): Hamming accuracy rose from 0.804 to 0.839 and the Jaccard index from 0.548 to 0.633 (true positives 8 to 13, false negatives 9 to 4, false positives 2 to 5, across 56 patient-phenomenology decisions). Given the small held-out sample, these estimates should be regarded as exploratory. This calibrated performance was preserved, and the Jaccard index further improved, when the evaluation was restricted to the phenomenologies with more definite clinician agreement (Hamming accuracy 0.9, Jaccard index 0.786), indicating that the gains did not rest on the least-reliable labels. Conclusion A two-stage strategy, a reusable predictive backbone combined with lightweight, site-specific adaptation, may offer a practical and scalable route to routine-video-based digital phenotyping of MDs across age groups. A shared backbone trained on standardized adult recordings transferred phenotyping signal to an independent, real-world pediatric cohort without retraining. Local calibration of the decision layer improved performance in this small exploratory cohort, while clinical-grade reliability across the full phenotypic spectrum remains to be confirmed in larger cohorts.
Abstract Violence against children (VAC) is one of the most significant, widespread, and preventable threats to human development in our world today. This chapter, which introduces the broader volume, argues that to promote just and sustainable responses to VAC, scholars and practitioners must develop a robust understanding of how direct, structural, and cultural forms of violence interact across social systems to coproduce and compound VAC and its negative effects. This understanding of VAC motivates a multisectoral response that seeks to promote intergenerational health and well-being through addressing violence in all its forms. With chapters highlighting diverse methodological approaches, context-specific case studies, and approaches to redress violence through practice and policy, this volume is designed to be a resource for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers working to prevent VAC.
Laura E. Miller-Graff, Scott L. Moeschberger, Catherine A. Maloney
Within their chapter Marie Demant and Friederike Lorenz discuss the role of shame in the context of violence against children in residential care. Their work is based on two empirical projects and includes reports of survivors of sexual violence, who reported their experiences in hearings conducted by the German ‘Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse’, which started its work in 2016. It furthermore includes empirical material from a research project on systematic violence by a team of professionals in a residential care home for children with disabilities. Both perspectives indicate how young people experience shame and humiliation as part of the institutional setting. Furthermore, it shows the negative impact these practices have on children and adolescents in situations of dependency, seeking help, and disclosure. It points out practices of humiliation as a part of the violence and shows to which extent shame can affect the possibilities for young people in these situations to be heard and to get help.
This dissertation aims to address these identified empirical and methodological gaps by applying and refining preference elicitation methods across different domains (i.e., care, health, and well-being) and contexts (i.e., the Netherlands and several Latin American countries). Chapter 2 addresses the limited empirical evidence on how individuals evaluate and trade off combinations of public health policies under explicit system constraints by applying Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) in the Netherlands. Chapter 3 responds to the limited and fragmented application of preference elicitation methods in Latin America and the lack of empirical evidence on policy trade-offs under constraints in this context. It reports on a PVE in Peru which elicits citizens’ preferences for school opening policies during a public health crisis, thereby providing evidence on how individuals trade off public health risks against learning outcomes and child well-being under different risk scenarios. Chapter 4 addresses the limited empirical evidence on stakeholder perspectives in care and policy decision-making, as well as the limited use of approaches that systematically identify and compare such perspectives in Latin America. It applies Q methodology to patient-centred care (PCC) in Peru, identifying viewpoints among patients and healthcare professionals regarding which dimensions of PCC should be prioritised. Chapter 5 examines the monetary valuation of health and broader well-being outcomes. It reports on a study estimating societal WTP for both health gains (QALYs) and well-being gains (WALYs). Hence, it provides empirical estimates in a context where such evidence remains scarce and informs the absolute and relative valuation of broader outcomes within health economic evaluation. Chapter 6 investigates methodological issues related to the anchoring of wellbeing scales and the placement of “dead” by analysing how individuals position dead relative to ICECAP-A well-being states. This exploratory study aims to stimulate the discussion on the importance of anchoring in valuing well-being states, which is crucial for the interpretation and use of WALY calculations in economic evaluations. Chapter 7 addresses methodological and empirical gaps related to the contextual validity of multidimensional well-being measures in Latin America by validating the recently developed 10-item Well-being instrument (WiX) in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru. In doing so, this chapter provides evidence on its content and construct validity and its applicability for use in these settings. Finally, Chapter 8 discusses the overall findings of the thesis, reflects on its strengths and limitations, and outlines research and policy implications, and concludes. The overall scope and structure of the dissertation are illustrated in Figure 1.1.
As stipulated in Article 19, paragraph 1 The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, „violence“ may be „all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse". Violence does not recognize any cultural or social differences and is not necessarily always reflected in the same form. No matter in what conditions or forms it occurs, violence leaves behind long-term, devastating, and indelible consequences. In developed countries, the problem of violence is considered a national problem and there are programs that coordinate different sectors of the society (education, health, justice, social work and others) that carry out various synchronized activities and take various measures to restrain and prevent violence against children. In the literature you can find suggestions for programs designed to prevent or reduce violence against children, but also treatment of emotional and behavioral problems in children and adolescents. Prevention should contribute for raising public awareness on the situation of violence against children, familiarizing the citizens with the rights of children and a healthy family, successful parenting, protection of children from addictions, perceiving and overcoming problems related to education and upbringing of children. The analysis of the data collected by associations of citizens indicates that we can draw a conclusion that there is a harmonization of the national legal framework with international documents and standards on children's rights and their protection, and above all, with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.[1] There is a lack of coordination in the planning and implementation of preventive activities, both in terms of time distribution and in terms of geographical coverage. There is a big difference in the intensity of the implementation of campaigns in different municipalities. Most campaigns are conducted in larger municipalities but not in continuous manner. As stipulated in Article 19, paragraph 1 The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, „violence“ may be „all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse". Violence does not recognize any cultural or social differences and is not necessarily always reflected in the same form. No matter in what conditions or forms it occurs, violence leaves behind long-term, devastating, and indelible consequences. In developed countries, the problem of violence is considered a national problem and there are programs that coordinate different sectors of the society (education, health, justice, social work and others) that carry out various synchronized activities and take various measures to restrain and prevent violence against children. In the literature you can find suggestions for programs designed to prevent or reduce violence against children, but also treatment of emotional and behavioral problems in children and adolescents. Prevention should contribute for raising public awareness on the situation of violence against children, familiarizing the citizens with the rights of children and a healthy family, successful parenting, protection of children from addictions, perceiving and overcoming problems related to education and upbringing of children. The analysis of the data collected by associations of citizens indicates that we can draw a conclusion that there is a harmonization of the national legal framework with international documents and standards on children's rights and their protection, and above all, with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.[1] There is a lack of coordination in the planning and implementation of preventive activities, both in terms of time distribution and in terms of geographical coverage. There is a big difference in the intensity of the implementation of campaigns in different municipalities. Most campaigns are conducted in larger municipalities but not in continuous manner.
La tesi ha come obiettivo l'indagine dei temi di maternità, sterilità e fertilità nel Macbeth e nelle tre versioni cinematografiche dirette da Roman Polanski, Justin Kurzel e Joel Coen rispettivamente nel 1971, 2015 e 2021. Attraverso la lente degli adaptation studies e della critica femminista la tesi esplora come il mezzo cinematografico ha saputo tradurre sul grande schermo elementi del testo shakespeariano amplificandone i significati e modificandone l'essenza in relazione al contesto socio-culturale di riferimento.
Objective: The present study was conducted to explain the dynamics of military families and the factors influencing childbearing within the context of Iranian society. Methods and Materials: This study was conducted using a qualitative approach based on grounded theory, employing the Strauss and Corbin paradigmatic model. The participants were selected from military families residing in Tehran, Iran. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews using purposive sampling with 18 members of military families. The data were analyzed in three stages of coding (open, axial, and selective) and categorized into main themes. Findings: Analysis of the participants’ interviews led to the identification of 13 selective categories, 38 axial categories, and 156 subcategories. Childbearing among military families is influenced by numerous inhibiting and encouraging factors, including economic costs, family support networks, generational continuity and national authority, commitment to the leadership discourse system, faith-based action, parents’ psychological capacity, parenting experience, organizational and occupational structure, coherence of population policies, transformation of contemporary lifestyles, and institutionalization of structural support. Conclusion: The findings of the study can assist policymakers and social planners in shifting their focus from general factors toward key and realistic components involved in the childbearing decision-making process and in designing supportive policies aimed at increasing family satisfaction and enhancing parents’ inclination and motivation toward childbearing.
Violence against children (VAC) is a pervasive public health concern with profound and lasting consequences for physical, mental, and social well-being. While prior research has linked economic stressors such as unemployment to child maltreatment, less is known about the association between broader measures of economic development and VAC, particularly in lowand middle-income countries. This study examines the association between state-level GDP per capita and crimes against children across Indian states over time, incorporating police per capita as a secondary indicator of institutional capacity. Using longitudinal administrative crime data from, results of a linear regression with panel correction standard errors, indicate a nonlinear relationship between GDP per capita and crimes against children. Additionally, there is a significant association between policing capacity and reported crimes. By distinguishing between economic development and state capacity, this study contributes new longitudinal evidence from a large LMIC context and underscores the need for caution in interpreting official crime data when designing child protection policy.
Generally, a national State is considered the guarantor of protection and safety of the people living within its borders or who are subjected to its sovereignty. Yet history is full of examples in which State authorities not only neglect their responsibility toward at-risk people, but also actively contribute to threatening and endangering the lives of the latter. This is especially manifest within State policies referring to people considered ‘foreign’, or whose benefit towards society is questioned. This chapter reviews some historical examples, in which poor and indigenous children have been affected by such violent, exclusionary and discriminatory policies with racist connotations, of which consequences can still be felt today. Particularly, it reconstructs cases from the British Empire and from States emerging from settler colonies, namely United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
