Building safe and equal futures: Launching SDDirect’s Equal Education & Child Protection Portfolio

The scale of the problem: An overview of the link between child protection and education  
 

Globally, 119 million girls are out of school today, including 34 million of primary school age, 28 million of lower-secondary age, and 58 million of upper-secondary age.¹ For girls living in conflict-affected settings, the situation is even starker: they are more than twice as likely to be out of school compared to their peers in non-conflict-affected areas.² Each of these statistics represents not just lost potential for these children, but a loss for all of us - a society robbed of innovation, leadership, and untold contributions. 

Education and child protection are not isolated objectives—they are mutually reinforcing. Weak child protection mechanisms have devastating impacts on educational outcomes, while neglecting education can increase girls’ and boys’ exposure to harm. This reciprocal relationship creates a cycle of disadvantage unless both sectors are tackled simultaneously. 
 

1. Weak child protection leads to poor educational outcomes 

• Violence in homes and communities: Girls and boys exposed to violence, whether in the home or in the community, often struggle with attendance and learning. Research has shown that children who experience violence are more likely to underperform academically, perpetuating cycles of poverty and marginalisation.³  

• Violence in schools: Bullying, corporal punishment, and sexual harassment are endemic in many school environments, with UNESCO reporting that one in three students globally has experienced peer-to-peer violence.4 Unsafe learning environments significantly hinder academic performance and participation. 

• Weak safeguarding systems: Schools lacking adequate safeguarding policies, practices and procedures expose girls and boys to risks such as sexual exploitation and abuse by peers or staff. An estimated 246 million girls and boys experience violence in and around schools – on the way to school, on school grounds, and within classrooms.⁵ The World Bank estimates that violence in and around schools amounts to an estimated $11 trillion in lost lifetime earnings globally.⁶  

• Exploitation: Child labour and trafficking disrupt education for millions of girls and boys. As of 2021, a total of 160 million children – 63 million girls and 97 million boys – were in child labour globally, accounting for almost one in ten of all children worldwide. Nearly half of all those in child labour – 79 million children in absolute terms – were in hazardous work that directly endangers their health, safety, and moral development, including sexual exploitation.⁷ These practices create intergenerational cycles of poverty, as parents with lower levels of education, are less likely to prioritise schooling for their children.⁸
   

2. Neglected education leads to greater protection risks 

• Dropout vulnerabilities: Girls and boys who drop out of school face heightened risks of exploitation, child marriage, and trafficking.⁹ 

• Child marriage and other gendered harmful traditional practices: Keeping girls in school is one of the best ways of delaying marriage. On average, the likelihood of a girl marrying as a child is six percentage points less for every additional year she stays in secondary education.¹⁰  Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting, is also a powerful gendered driver of whether a girl stays in school, and education can be a powerful preventor of girls’ likelihood of being cut.¹¹  Education is a pathway to gender equality, strengthening girls' skills, knowledge and power to challenge discriminatory gender norms and reduces the risk of girls being targeted for multiple forms of gender-based violence.^12,13 

• Psychosocial impact: Education provides critical routines and social structures that can help children navigate trauma and crisis. Without these, children lose a key protective factor, leaving them vulnerable to harm.