According to international policy, states hold primary responsibility in taking all appropriate measures to protect, prevent and respond to VAC. Rights-based approaches are often used to guide research in areas of child welfare, VAC, and more recently criminal justice interventions. The use of composite indices in research has been recognized as a beneficial tool in measuring country performance in various rights-related areas, including child welfare and protection. This study sought to understand how well countries in the European Union perform in achieving Child Friendly Protection through the construction of the Child Friendly Protection Index (CFPI) comprising of four critical domains: protection, prevention, response/intervention and justice. It was guided by two key research questions: (1) What factors explain variations in country performance within and across index domains? (2) What external factors, explain country performance in the CFPI framework? In terms of country CFPI performance, Sweden ranked the highest, with Spain closely behind. In contrast, Greece ranked the lowest in achieving child friendly protection. In addition, regression analysis concluded that countries with stronger rule of law would perform better in the CFPI framework.
