The Solomon Islands has one of the highest rates of violence against young children in the Pacific. 72% of children between 1-14 years old experience violent discipline at home. This violence is as seen as a social norm and is so widespread that in 2022, ChildFund, joined forces with Save the Children and Word Vision, to tackle the problem and also gained funding support from NZ MFAT.
The joint initiative is called SIEVAP which stands for ‘Solomon Islands Ending Violence against Pikinni’ (children). Changing a deeply engrained behaviour requires the support all layers of society - from families and communities to teachers and cultural leaders.
Starting in schools, we are engaging with teachers and pupils to ensure safe learning environments, building knowledge of children’s rights, and empowering a generation to become agents of change so this persistent violence against children ends.
In the Solomon Islands, it’s currently legal to marry at just 15 years old and we are working with government to ban child marriage.
We have also launched a national campaign “Make it 18” to raise awareness of violence against young brides and to push for the minimum age to increase to 18 years-old. This critical work is ongoing and over the next five years we hope to scale up the “Make it 18” campaign to drive the legislative change on child marriage. Importantly, we are also working to expand this work to remotest areas of the Solomon Islands to establish protection measures with local communities and national agencies so children can grow up without violence.
