Two for the Price of One: Building a Child Protection System through Social Protection Mechanisms

The CRC is in many ways an instrument for the protection of children, with most of its articles focusing on rights related to a name and identity, life in a family environment, protection from violence and abuse, and health and education. Yet the majority of its 197 signatories have not adequately invested in the justice and social welfare systems required to provide children with meaningful access to their rights. To address this problem, the Government of Mozambique has adopted an innovative and holistic approach, namely capitalising on the significant and increasing investment in social protection mechanisms to simultaneously build a child protection system. While these efforts have taken a number of years and are still a work in progress, this chapter takes stock of the lessons learned from this process as well as its positive outcomes to date. The authors conclude that such an integrated strategy is feasible and indeed desirable in the best interests of the child, both in terms of the principle of the indivisibility of human rights as well as from a practical standpoint, given the efficiencies a joint approach can generate.