Stop Child Trafficking
Since 2009, the Alliance has worked as the Irish partner for The Body Shop’s global campaign: ‘Stop Sex Trafficking of Children and Young People’. More than 165,000 people in Ireland signed the petition calling on Government to ratify the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, among other issues. Since 2000, 509 separated children have gone missing from State care and only 58 have been accounted for, with many feared to have been trafficked.
Smart Budgeting for Children’s Futures
What is Smart Budgeting? The Alliance is lobbying Government to invest in children through ‘smart’ policies and budgets that will have a positive impact across the life cycle. Ensuring children’s safety, health and education now, will equip them later to lead fulfilled lives as citizens, parents and workers.
Report Card Series
The Alliance annual Report Card series examines whether the Government has honoured the promises it has made to children living in Ireland. Report Card 2011 analyses 30 key commitments in the areas of education, health, material wellbeing and safeguarding childhood.
Children’s Rights and Constitutional Reform
Strengthening children’s rights in the Constitution has been a long-standing goal and key policy priority for the Children’s Rights Alliance. However, Constitutional reform to establish children as individual rights holders is not new – it was first discussed in the Oireachtas over 30 years ago. And the need for reform continues to be raised by the legal profession, academics and others working professionally with children, as well as by political parties and non-governmental organisations.