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Founded in 1979 by Nigel Cantwell e Canon Moerman, Defence for Children International has actively contributed to the process of drafting the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international standards at a time when human rights were not a priority in the analysis and questions around children’s issues. 

The debate which took place on the International Year of the Child highlighted and spread a large quantity of specific information for the first time in relation to the violation of children’s rights, for example torture, prostitution, economic exploitation, arbitrary detention, child slavery and trafficking. 

Defence for Children International was established to deal with the wide range of issues related to children through a human rights-centred approach. By becoming a reference point of the ONG coordination group when the CRC was drafted, Defence for Children International developed important relationships with other organisations becoming a crossroads of competencies and capacities. 

Today the movement is made up of 40 members between sections and associated members. Despite all the sections adhere to the mission and principles of the movement, each one defines and implements its own projects to promote and protect children’s rights according to the needs and priorities of young girls, boys and teenagers in the respective countries, as well as initiating international cooperation projects. The national sections are made up and governed locally and are financially independent from the Secretariat. 

Since 1924, the International Social Service (ISS), promotes connections between social services and judicial authorities in different countries to provide support and orient children and their families who, following voluntary or forced migration due to social causes, have been separated or live in poverty or difficult conditions which require cross-border intervention. 

To resolve intercultural and cross-border family conflict, ISS follows a multi-disciplinary approach based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, approved by the UN in 1989. 

Defence for Children Italia, a member of the network since 2018, has a number of caseworkers who manage referrals on a voluntary basis to deliver the ISS mission. As we do not receive any public or private funding for this activity, in order to face case management costs and costs incurred by overseas counterparts, we ask organisations that are interested in the service for a contribution to the association’s current account.