Safeguarding
Safeguarding is the practice by authorities and communities of "protecting the interests" of children and others who they judge to be "vulnerable". It can therefore be seen as an ongoing "protective" influence on behalf of children, without their input or consent.
The term has become particularly common in the UK, where it is used by local authorities to legitimize a range of protective measures, a number of which might come under increased scrutiny if assessed on their individual merits. The term is part of an array of obfuscatory terms used by governments to legitimize powers they have over the running of everyday life.
Linkage to conservative feminism, abuse for political ends
More recently, the term has been explicitly adopted by radical (conservative) feminists, much like grooming. One prime example is the British Safe Schools Alliance, a front-group that adopts the optics of a charity to push a radical anti-trans agenda.[1] Examples of this abuse for political ends can be seen throughout social media, whenever education-adjacent British feminists are mobilized by controversies centering on the normalization of attraction to minors, such as in the case of Jacob Breslow.
Linkage to racism
It has been suggested, particularly by left-wing writers, that the idea of "safeguarding or rescuing children" both perpetuates and institutionalizes a racist belief system that paints ethnic minorities outside the western world as passive victims, but as culpable "delinquents" within said democracies. This is said to be achieved by way of selective application.