We fight against child labor, online sexual exploitation and provide emergency assistance.
Our mission is to protect children by preventing and stopping child exploitation. And to enable them to make their voices heard. Our vision is that children can flourish in a world without exploitation. Our values are people-oriented, playful, courageous and responsible.
Where we work
Terre des Hommes Netherlands fights against the exploitation of children in four regions: Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. We work a lot with local partners, so we continue to have a good overview of local problems. Our partners know the culture and how to best help children who are exploited. This allows us to organize our programs better. We have several regional offices. Mainly people from the country itself work there. They provide guidance to our local partners and help them to continue to do their work professionally.
Our History
Terre des Hommes has been fighting against child exploitation since 1960. Get to know our history and our founders.
"There's is no this world"
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a idiosyncratic French writer and pilot of a mail plane in the Second World War, with which he flew over Africa, among other places.
Even before his world-famous book Le Petit Prince was published, he wrote the book 'Terre des Hommes'. In this book he called on 'the people of the earth' to take their responsibility and show solidarity. Because, he said: "There is no third world. There is one world and we are all responsible for it."
The ideas of the book appealed to the Frenchman Edmond Kaiser so much that he founded a children's aid organization called Terre des Hommes. In 1965, enthusiastic volunteers in the Netherlands followed his example.
In the beginning, Terre des Hommes Netherlands mainly provided emergency aid in developing countries through Dutch doctors. Over the years, the focus shifted to structural aid through local partners.
Stopping child exploitation, the most serious violations of the rights of the child, became the mission of Terre des Hommes Netherlands.
Not an easy battle, because poverty sometimes drives people to despair. And prosecuting perpetrators of child exploitation is often not a priority for local governments.
But Terre des Hommes does not just give up and, together with its local partners, continues to work for a world without child exploitation.
The United Nations International Convention on the Rights of the Child forms the basis for our work. We help vulnerable children. We never look at religion, skin color, gender or culture.
Because every child has the right to grow up in a safe environment without exploitation.
Join the fight. Stop child exploitation!