Protecting children, across borders.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) recognises every child’s right to protection, well-being and respect for their rights. When a child’s situation involves several countries, however, implementing these rights can become more complex. This applies in particular to children facing danger, family conflict or abduction. Particular attention is paid to unaccompanied minors, whose journeys often involve several countries and specific protection issues.
ISS Switzerland intervenes in transnational situations to help protect children and find solutions. It advises and supports authorities, professionals and families, and facilitates cooperation between the actors involved. Through its network of partners in almost 120 countries, it can carry out social assessments abroad, help report situations of risk, contribute to the transfer of protective measures, facilitate the search for documents and help prepare and implement solutions suited to the child’s situation.
Our areas of work
Social assessment abroad
At the request of authorities or protection services, we carry out social assessments abroad through our network of partners. They shed light on the situation of the child, their parents or their family environment and help ensure that decisions focus on the child, their needs and their views.
Reporting situations of risk
We inform and support professionals, authorities and families facing a situation in which a child may be at risk in a transnational context.
Support for the transfer of protective measures
We support the introduction and transfer of protective measures from one country to another, in cooperation with the authorities and partners concerned.
International child abduction
We support parents and professionals facing international child abduction, in cooperation with the competent authorities. Our team provides social and legal insight and can support the steps involved in the child’s return.
International foster placement
The international foster placement of a child is subject to various conditions, particularly under civil law and foreign nationals law. The social and financial conditions that the foster family must meet must also be taken into account. ISS Switzerland provides information on the procedure, the steps to take and the main legal aspects of international foster placement.
Search for documents
We support the search for and obtaining of documents needed to protect the child or to carry out administrative and legal procedures in a transnational context.
Preparation and support for return (PAR project)
The Preparation – Support – Return (PAR) project aims to support the return of children who are subject to a protective measure or in a vulnerable situation, as well as children facing international abduction.
Legal representation of the child
ISS Switzerland helps make the child’s voice heard and ensures that their rights and best interests are taken into account in proceedings that concern them (asylum and foreign nationals law in the Canton of Geneva, family law in the German-speaking cantons).
An international legal framework
ISS Switzerland works alongside the authorities to implement the international conventions ratified by Switzerland.
Hague Convention on International Child Abduction
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
Hague Convention on the International Protection of Children
Life story
ISS Switzerland helps prevent female genital mutilation for three young sisters
Arwa, Malika and Gadi* were born in a town in Burkina Faso where female genital mutilation is common practice. Despite pressure from their father’s family, the parents firmly opposed the practice and managed to avoid it. However, after the father’s untimely death, the mother received threats from her in-laws. She fled and hid her three daughters with a friend in another town. On the strength of false job offers, and hoping her daughters could join her later, the mother decided to leave and arrived in a European country. There, far from finding safety, she was caught up in a human trafficking network. She managed to escape again, this time to Switzerland. With the help of an association supporting victims of trafficking, she tried to bring her daughters to safety. The institution’s social worker asked ISS Switzerland to prepare a report on the situation in Burkina Faso. As the mother did not meet the criteria for family reunification, we supported an application for humanitarian visas for Arwa, Malika and Gadi. Before the positive decision arrived, Arwa was abducted by her grandparents. We discussed a strategy with our partner on the ground and managed to persuade the grandparents to release her. Arwa was thus able to join her mother in Switzerland a few days after her two sisters.
*Names changed