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Child protection

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Key points
  • During emergencies and forced displacement children are at increased risks of violence, abuse and exploitation, and separation from their families, all of which have life-long, devastating impact on their lives and development. Child protection is a life-saving priority and should be an integral component of UNHCR’s emergency response
  • Identify child protection risks and protective factors, stakeholder capacities, role and capacity of national systems, and gaps from the outset through desk review, needs and rapid assessments, and ensure child protection is included in appeals, response plans, staffing plans and strategies. Remember, child protection risks exist in all forcibly displaced settings and are largely predictable
  • Programme for child protection through developing a child protection situational analysis, child protection strategy, budget requirements and workforce needs that are well integrated in the operational response plan
  • Support integration child protection considerations into all response sectors to ensure children’s safety, prevent new risks, ensuring child participation, child-friendly communication, and accountability to children
  • In collaboration with stakeholders, establish or strengthen child protection services including safe identification and referral, Best Interests Procedure (BIP), protection, care and reunification for unaccompanied and separated children, Mental Health and Psychosocial Support, and birth registration. Involve national child protection authorities from the outset in all stages of the response and support national systems to protect forcibly displaced and/or stateless children
  • Support children and families through activities that build life skills, promotes participation, family strengthening and parenting skills, and support community-level effort to protect children
  • In refugee settings, establish and co-lead with the government a mechanism for coordinating child protection assessments, prioritisation, and delivery of services. In IDP settings, participate in the Child Protection Area of Responsibility (CP AoR) and contribute to the delivery of child protection programmes
  • Plan for post emergency child protection needs through multi-year planning, strengthening national systems and strengthening local child protection capacities

Post emergency phase

Child protection emergency response should focus on addressing the immediate, medium, and long-term protection risks from the outset. Simultaneously, plans and programmes should also consider the post-emergency child protection needs, based on context. As not all pre-existing risk and newly emerged risks may be addressed during the first phase of the emergency response, UNHCR should work with the national child protection actors and partners to ensure on-going prevention and response activities. This should be done while working to strengthen national child protection capacity, empowering children, and their communities, establishing links to development programmes and approaches, and incorporating child protection considerations into durable solutions. As part of the transition to post-emergency phase:

  • Ensure child protection is clearly reflected in the operation’s multi-year plan.
  • Strengthen capacity of government, UNHCR and partner staff, including in cooperation and coordination with other Child protection specialised agencies, especially UNICEF.
  • Advocate for sustained funding to national child protection actors and to strengthen the national child protection system.
  • Strengthen local child protection capacities, and where available strengthen child protection capacity of organisations led by displaced communities, including by using agile UNHCR funding tools (e.g., Small Grant) and advocating with donors to support the most effective grass-root organisations providing child protection programming.
  • Review the coordination arrangements, those led by UNHCR in refugee situations, or in the context of an interagency review of the Clusters, and determine whether any changes are required (e.g., change the type of coordination mechanism, establish additional coordination mechanism at the sub-national level, etc.).

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