Protecting Children from Exploitation and Trafficking: Using the Positive Deviance Approach in Uganda and Indonesia

Some girls in conflict-ridden Northern Uganda resort to transactional sex to have a mat to sleep on at night. And with the prospect of earning more money in a day than their parents might make in a month, many girls in East Java, Indonesia fall into work in the sex industry. Children face sexual exploitation worldwide, especially when they have little support to avoid them, have few skills that give them options, and little sense of their own value and possible alternative futures. The Positive Deviance approach to social change finds solutions to common problems in the behaviors of positive outliers-those who defy the worst odds in the face of seemingly intractable problems and present social proof that local and actionable solutions to those problems are equally available to their peers. This monograph documents two child protection projects implemented by Save the Children using the Positive Deviance approach.

Arvind Singhal, Ph.D., is the Samuel Shirley and Edna Holt Marston Endowed Professor, and Director of Research and Outreach, Sam Donaldson Center for Communication Studies, in the Department of Communication at the University of Texas at El Paso. Lucia Dura is a Ph.D. Candidate in Rhetoric and Writing Studies, in the Department of English at the University of Texas at El Paso.