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Despite global and African continental efforts to curb violence against children (VAC), it is the fourth leading cause of death for young people aged 15 to 19 in Africa, according to a 2021 UNICEF report. In introducing this special issue on VAC in Africa, I contend that violence prevention and response efforts ought to be situated in local understandings of how violence is inflicted and experienced. Sociocultural and political ideals and values present in Africa nurture an atmosphere in which adults exercise power over children’s lives and can inflict harm upon them if they choose. Age-based power (adultism) facilitates VAC. Therefore, this special issue is underpinned by childism as a framework for challenging adultism in an effort to achieve a contextualized understanding of VAC in Africa, and how best to respond to and ultimately prevent it.

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The problem of violence against girls in Nigeria has attracted scholarly attention from a number of empirical and theoretical vantage points. This scholarship is vitally important. It has helped thrust feminist and other anthropological discourse into an arena of anti-violence work with significant impacts on, and repercussions for, girls in Nigeria. However, despite systemic change over the past years, the problem of violence against girls in Nigeria — as in Africa generally — persists. A consensus has emerged in the literature that cultural and social norms are relevant to the persistence of violence against girls in Nigeria. Without understating that relevance, this article analyses the problem from a different perspective. Cultural, religious, ethnic, and social norms have figured increasingly in the conceptual frameworks of both international and national institutions, distracting attention from the ways in which ideologies confronting girls are actually embedded within organisational structures of control. Important as it may be to understand the ways that these norms have given rise to violence against girls, it is also vital to investigate the techniques through which violent practices are maintained despite the changing nature of Nigerian society. Using a critical legal studies approach, I argue that any solution to violence against girls must focus as much on institutional change as it does on social transformation. Exploring violence against girls from this perspective opens up an “institutional complex”, revealing a legal and political system that serves as a tool used by the government and the political elite for consolidating power and legitimising discriminatory principles as traditional values.

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Community-based action research is increasingly gaining traction in development work, partly because of its benefits in contextualizing societal problems and “handing over the stick” to the communities; that is, researchers listen, question, and learn as the experts (the community members) identify their problems and define the change they desire. This research approach, therefore, empowers communities and is a shift from traditional research where the researcher presupposes that deductions about a phenomenon are to be made outside the natural environment. This research paper documents the use of participatory learning and action approaches in designing, implementing, and monitoring interventions to prevent violence against children in post-conflict northern Uganda, a region that suffered through the Lord’s Resistance insurgency from 1987 to 2006.

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The global development agenda acknowledges the role of cities in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and addressing contemporary challenges caused by urbanization. SDG 11 aspires to make “cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” by 2030, even as the global urban population continues to grow exponentially, along with — even more rapidly — the population of children living in cities. Cities are the level of government closest to people’s daily lives, and are best placed to address the numerous challenges and rights violations that children are exposed to, including sexual exploitation and abuse, violence, trafficking, and child labour. SDG 16.2 has the primary aim of ending the “abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against children”. Through the lens of the subsidiarity principle, this article argues that localization to the city level of law and policy strategies that address violence against children can provide normative and powerful legal tools for their protection. Although there is developing scholarly literature on the global aspirations expressed in SDG 11 and SDG 16.2, little has been offered from a child rights perspective on the role of city governments in the prevention of, and protection of children from, violence.

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The internet has become an essential resource for social interaction among children, but it brings with it both advantages and disadvantages that depend in part on how it is used. This study, which is anchored in social learning theory, employed a desktop review of existing literature that focused on Kenya but covered global and other regional levels as well. The study found a number of benefits of the internet for children: updating family and friends on new developments in the children’s lives, reviewing photos and other records of past events, engaging in online interactions, and increasing their capacity for learning. Nonetheless, there are also internet-specific risks, such as access to inappropriate content and unsafe interactions with other children or adults. Other risks include “digital kidnapping” and contact with perpetrators who encourage children to engage in sexual activity. Although some countries have policies on internet usage, few have specific policies or guidelines addressing children’s vulnerability when sharing their pictures online. Moreover, most such policies are not applied in practice, especially in African countries. The study recommends developing and implementing policy frameworks to protect children online and using privacy settings to protect their information.

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This article is based on a study conducted to understand the functionality and connectivity of existing networks and their impact on the prevention and response to violence against children (VAC) in East Africa. We adopted an exploratory qualitative approach in which a bottom-up purposive selection of study participants was used. Data were collected using focus group discussions with grassroots actors, interviews with network leads at the grassroots district and national levels, and VAC network funders. The study was carried out in Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam region in three districts (Kigamboni, Temeke, and Ilala) and eight wards. Our findings show that because the nature of VAC is complex and multidimensional, efforts to respond to it also exhibit these qualities. Depending on the goal, networking takes various forms, and VAC networks can have unspecified lifespans. VAC networking results from strategic decision-making that yields many benefits, including a stronger voice and visibility, enhanced impact, and potential efficiency. However, networks also encounter bottlenecks that negatively impact their goals. This is an indication that VAC network actors ought to be more reflexive regarding the space they occupy in the network and intentionally pursue strong relationships among actors and networks.

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Violence against children (VAC) is both a global and local concern that has resulted in several child protection initiatives by formal and informal networks in East Africa. The dominant narrative on networking for VAC prevention and response significantly focuses on the functionality of formal networks and ignores grassroots networks. We conducted research to explore the functionality and corresponding impact of diverse networks that work to prevent and respond to VAC in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Study participants were VAC network leads at grassroots, subnational, and national levels, and network funders. Data were collected using interviews, document review, and focus group discussions. We found that scholarly literature illuminates the role of formal networks at the expense of grassroots networks, which are ignored and minoritized in literature. This may contribute to a disparity between the funding of grassroots and formal networks. Yet, grassroots network actors are VAC first responders and are instrumental in child protection work. We contend that it is vital to center grassroots networks in VAC policies, programs, and research in order to achieve sustainable connections between networks, communities, and funders, and to empower communities to protect children from abuse.

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The rising cases of violence against children (VAC) have prompted strategies, laws, and policies to protect Ugandan children at the grassroots, subnational, and national levels. Despite the emergence of various strategies by different VAC actors who network formally and informally to address VAC, the functionality of their networks has not received adequate attention in previous research. We conducted a qualitative study to examine the dynamics of networking for VAC in Uganda. We collected data using interviews with network funders and leads at the national and subnational levels and focus group discussions with grassroots and community members. Our findings reveal that VAC networks belong to two broad categories: formal and informal. These exist side by side, usually operating in parallel, but sometimes with crisscrossing and overlapping activities. While the work of formal network actors is better resourced and recognized, and more visible, informal network actors are invisibilized in government plans, philanthropic efforts, and scholarly research. A more collaborative and inclusive VAC networking system would be instrumental in enhancing VAC prevention and response.

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Kenya has made significant efforts to address violence against children (VAC), but its prevalence remains high. Networking of different actors has shown evidence of benefit in some sectors, but determining its effectiveness in addressing VAC has not received due scholarly attention. We conducted qualitative research, including a desk review, focus group discussions, and interviews. In this article, we apply complexity leadership theory to illuminate the types of networks involved and the influence Kenya’s government actors can exert towards eliminating VAC. We found that these actors operate through structured and unstructured networks. The latter are mainly grassroots responders who work voluntarily. The complexity leadership theory postulates that leadership influence is exercised through key functions, which are reflected in the two types of networks. The political–administrative function in Kenya is shaped by law; we show how it transforms other networks via an adaptive function. An enabling function is executed through enforcing policy, monitoring, and other methods, while a dissemination function involves the translation of ideas into policy, such as the transformation of Childline Kenya, a grassroots organization, into the National Child Helpline. We conclude that government should strengthen child rights networking by building more technical and financial capacity for this role.