Islamic Relief is adding momentum to child safeguarding in Africa, by joining other leading international development agencies in the first conference of its kind.
The conference was held in South Africa by Keeping Children Safe, a global network which brings organisations together to increase safeguards offered to children. The first network conference to be held in Africa, the event concentrated on identifying and addressing the challenges faced by organisations and communities in creating a safer environment for children across the continent.
Over 200 participants from across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and Australia took part in three days of sessions, which emphasised that safeguarding children is everyone’s responsibility. Islamic Relief was the only Muslim charity to participate, and delivered two thought-provoking sessions through the lens of faith.
“Islamic Relief is determined to make sure that children realise their right to personal dignity, and are protected from abuse,” said our child protection specialist Leila Fasseaux. “An Islamic approach can hugely improve the lives of some of the most vulnerable children, so we were keen to share our insights at the conference.”
Empowering faith communities to tackle harmful practices
In the first session, we teamed-up with CAFOD to unpack some of the challenges and opportunities for child safeguarding in Muslim and Catholic institutions such as madrasahs (religious schools) and churches.
We looked at issues such as poor reporting mechanisms and educational standards, as well as cultural barriers that may be faced by children reporting abuse – emphasising the need for teachers to be trained to identify child abuse and support vulnerable children.
Muslim and Christian perspectives on keeping children safe
In our second session, we focused on our experiences working in Muslim communities across Africa, with Islamic Relief South Africa sharing case studies of child protection work they are currently involved in, explained Elsadig Sidieg, one of four staff that led the discussion.
“Faith plays a vital role in the lives of the communities we work with, and is therefore essential that faith-perspectives empower them to tackle issues such as harmful practices which put so many children at risk of abuse,” he said.
“For this reason, we examined issues such as domestic violence, corporal punishment, child marriage, and female genital cutting,” added our child protection in Islam specialist, Neelam Fida.
“We explored how Islamic teachings advocate for child wellbeing, and drew on our experience engaging faith leaders in tackling these issues.”
In addition, we took part in a number of conference side sessions. These enabled us to further share learning and experience with leading experts on key topics such as empowering children to keep themselves safe from harm, child friendly approaches to dealing with child protection concerns, understanding our attitudes and beliefs on abuse as well as challenges to child safeguarding in emergencies.
The Keeping Children Safe conference was held in Cape Town in September. Islamic Relief has been a member of Keeping Children Safe for over four years. As an active member, we develop safeguarding tools and resources designed to protect children within the communities in which we work.
Most recently, this has seen us training our staff in Islamic approaches to keeping children safe in Jordan, Lebanon, and South Africa.
