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	A rights-based approach to social protection by Wouter van Ginneken The International Social Security Association   Feb 2012   Social protection has become a centrepiece for development, because it is an indispensable ingredient for empowering people to participate in society in all its dimensions – social, political, economic and cultural. It is also increasingly considered as an essential tool for states to fulfill their human rights obligations.   These are some of the basic ideas behind the social protection floor (SPF) that is defined as a set of guarantees that secure the availability and provision of, and access to, an essential level of quality social protection and services for all.   Social protection and human rights in a new global social contract.   The adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) marks the first time in history that the world community has accepted to be accountable for the achievement of global objectives. The MDGs can be considered a first “claim” of the poor towards global society and a first component of a global social contract. The SPF could be considered as part of a new global contract, in that it guarantees that all workers and citizens have the capacity to participate in economic, social, political and cultural life.   Social protection is particularly important for vulnerable people who have little or no access to services and transfers. Social protection is not just a residual safety net, but is one of the building blocks for a peaceful society in which economic and social development can flourish. It can also contribute over the longer run to more just and equitable social outcomes.   The underlying structural, social and political drivers of poverty, vulnerability and inequality have to be addressed in the context of a broad development strategy, in which social protection plays an important part.   Social protection, such as cash transfers, can have an important direct impact on the reduction of poverty.   However, the impact of such transfers on inequality may depend on the way these transfers are financed – by progressive income and wealth taxes or by more regressive taxes on products and services.   On the other hand, by providing the equal distribution of basic capabilities for all to participate in society, social protection can set the stage for policies that promote equality and fair distribution.   Finally, it can contribute to key societal goals, such as employment, health and durable development – through the appropriate design and implementation of social protection policies and programmes.   A new global social contract   Social protection, the SPF and the MDGs can contribute to a new global contract between high-, middle- and low-income countries, as well as between national governments and their citizens.   Our global economy has created many benefits which are very unequally distributed, both between and within countries. While a variety of aspects of the global economy need to be reformed, such as through the introduction of a financial transaction tax, the social and political sustainability of our global society and economy will need to be supported by a greater emphasis on human rights.   A human rights perspective ensures that all inhabitants of our planet will share in the benefits of globalization.   Social protection programmes are tools that can help states in fulfilling their obligations under international human rights law, with regard to specific rights, such as to health, social security, housing, food and education, but also to the way they realize social protection (and other development) programmes.   National SPFs could be adopted as a key ingredient to a human rights approach towards achieving the MDGs before and after 2015. It will then be up to individual states and other actors to develop coherent plans of action.   * Wouter van Ginneken, is a ISSA consultant on the extension of social security and former official of the International Labour Office.   (The International Social Security Association is the principal international institution bringing together social security agencies and organizations. ISSA’s aim is to promote dynamic social security as the social dimension in a globalizing world. Founded in 1927, the ISSA has its headquarters at the International Labour Office, in Geneva). Visit the related web page
	Governments failing to adequately protect children from sex trafficking by ECPAT International Thailand   Countries worldwide are failing to properly protect children from sex trafficking, a global child protection network says in a new report, urging governments to ratify U.N. protocols on the issue and give victims more support.   Bangkok-based ECPAT International, which reviewed and ranked 42 countries globally on their efforts to protect children from trafficking, said more still needs to be done despite significant progress in recent years.   ECPAT pressed countries to urgently ratify the United Nations’ Trafficking Protocol and Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, reform laws and ensure all the victims get much-needed help.   “Most countries are failing to sufficiently criminalise the trafficking of children for sex,” ECPAT said in a statement accompanying the report.   “In many countries, the legal system fails to protect child victims, instead labelling them as delinquents or even criminals,” it said, adding that this led to victims being more criminalised than the traffickers.   Countries such as Ireland, the Philippines and Poland made “notable efforts” in the past two years while Malaysia, Singapore and Turkey – consistently ranked at the bottom since 2009 – are still progressing slowly, the ranking showed.   Industrialised nations such as the UK and Hong Kong have embarked on “limited measures,” while the United States, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Norway, Sweden and South Korea have only made “some progress,” underlying that child trafficking is more than just a developing country problem, the report said.   China and Myanmar, where activists have raised concerns over human trafficking, were not included.   Maureen Crombie, chair of ECPAT International Board of Trustees, said the states were chosen based on where it has a presence and where they were able to carry out baseline research.   Nearly 80 percent of all human trafficking worldwide is for sexual exploitation, according to a 2009 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).   Worldwide, more than one in five trafficking victims are children. But in some parts of Africa and the Mekong region children are the majority, the report said.   However, exact statistics on child sex trafficking are hard to come by, due to the hidden nature of the crime and those who commit it.   ECPAT is sticking to a 10-year-old figure from the International Labour Organization (ILO) that estimated at least 1.2 million children are trafficked each year. Some aid workers told AlertNet they expect the number to be around 2 million based on field experience.   Yet approximately 13 percent of the countries ECPAT reviewed have no victim support services, and where services are offered they are often “incomprehensive, limited and unspecialised,” the report said.   Specialised support services for boy victims “should be urgently designed and delivered,” it added.   The report also called on countries to remove “barriers that currently impede full access to support services” such as the provision of assistance only upon condition that the child collaborates in the legal proceedings or is identified formally as a victim of trafficking.   It also urged governments to draw up national strategies to tackle child sex trafficking, establish a special police unit to combat such crimes with specially trained staff and educate teachers and children.   ECPAT produced the report at the end of its three-year campaign with The Body Shop, titled “Stop Sex Trafficking of Children and Young People,” which generated one of the largest petitions in history with more than 7 million signatures.   Twenty countries have committed to either change laws or adopt international human rights standards as a result of the campaign, the report said. Visit the related web page
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