A need for adaptability

When a situation becomes unstable, children's rights are often compromised before anything else. The past year is a good example. With the ongoing pandemic, resurgence of armed conflicts, increased incidence of natural disasters caused by climate change and growing numbers of migrants, instability is becoming the norm. For this reason, each country must have a solid child protection system that can adapt to changing circumstances.

In our everyday work on projects and with our partners, we see that children experience a wide range of situations and their rights can be violated in diverse ways. To address these issues and ensure that children's rights are respected, regardless of the situation, child protection systems must be able to adapt and children must be given the opportunity to play a bigger role.

The first step is to make the system adaptable by developing the skills of the people who make it up. 2022 marks the end of a decade spent analysing, defining, and structuring core competencies for different professions and services within child protection systems, a process carried out in collaboration with hundreds of specialists. The IBCR believes that using a competency-based approach is the key to strengthening and adapting child protection systems. By developing the right competencies, each person becomes able to uphold children's rights in their professional practice, including in new or unfamiliar situations. This approach ensures that services are adapted to the reality of the children involved. It also promotes multi-sector collaboration to ensure that children are protected in all circumstances.

The next step is to create conditions allowing children to pay a bigger role in defending their rights. This is in line with our strategic objectives for 2024 and in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In order to achieve the IBCR's vision—a world where every child enjoys their rights equally in all circumstances—we need to go beyond protection and focus on prevention, and children must play a key role in this. All too often, children are perceived as vulnerable and in need of protection, but in fact they are full subjects of the law who are capable of expressing their opinions and taking action to ensure their rights are respected.

Through our projects, particularly those in Burkina Faso, Senegal and Quebec, the IBCR is working to inform, mobilise and equip children so that they can take action. We're also working to make sure they have the space to do so, and that their points of view are taken into account by the adults around them. This is a major departure from the traditional view of children in our societies. This way of working is used in our Voices of Youth (Parole aux jeunes) project in Quebec by allowing children to influence the strategies developed to prevent and combat child sexual exploitation.

These approaches are central to everything we do—in Honduras, Costa Rica, Canada, Madagascar, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Senegal and more countries to come—in order to advance children's rights around the world.

Our organisation is growing faster than ever before, allowing us to expand our initiatives aimed at defending and promoting children's rights. This growth is thanks to you. We're grateful to all of you who take the time to read this annual report, support the IBCR's mission, follow our work and share our messages. The changing world calls for constant adaptation. Together, let's continue to work together to rise to the level of children!