Child Protection
The second pillar of NLG works to improve children's access to quality community-based child protection and psychosocial support services.
Overview
Syria
In its seventh year, the conflict in Syria continues to take a huge toll on the lives of children. Against a backdrop of violence, continuous displacements and worsening socioeconomic conditions, children in Syria endure multiple protection risks and violations of their rights on a daily basis. Grave child rights violations remain a critical concern with countless children killed and injured through persistent use of explosive weapons in civilian areas, recruitment and use of children by all parties to the conflict, torture, detention, abduction, sexual violence, attacks on schools and hospitals and denial of humanitarian access particularly to children living in UN-declared besieged areas. The crisis has also impacted on the well-being of caregivers, pushing children’s main source of protection to a breaking point. Children endure violence in their homes, schools and communities, often from those entrusted with their care.
Children face constant risks associated with explosive hazards, lack civil documentation to prove their existence, and out of sheer desperation many girls and boys are married off at a young age and withdrawn from school to work, often in dangerous condition. This toxic environment leaves many girls and boys deprived of their psychosocial needs and in a position of profound and prolonged distress.
Refugee hosting countries
With children accounting for 2.5 million Syrian refugees, child protection remains a core element of the protection response. Child labour continues to be an issue of particular concern, with many Syrian refugee children involved in hazardous work that denies them their rights to education from the age of 12 or younger.
The impact of trauma and the needs of vulnerable groups have been cited in participatory studies and assessments as barriers to increased access to education for adolescents and youth.1 Findings in Jordan, for example, indicate that violence against refugee boys and girls at school, in the classroom and on the playground and, for girls, en route to and from school are contributing to school dropout by adolescents. System issues, vulnerabilities and gender are also contributing factors. Discrimination against girls and young women remains widespread in homes, educational institutions and in the work place. Child marriage is a reality for many girls and restrictions are imposed on others when families ascribe to restrictive traditional norms and traditionally accepted female roles.2 Troublingly, research indicates that the child marriage rate among Syrian refugee adolescent girls has steadily climbed with each year of the crisis, with the latest reports finding that as many as 41 per cent of young displaced Syrian women in Lebanon have married before the age of 18.3 Most of the out-of-school children are in the age range of 12-18 years old and vulnerable to child protection risks like child labour and child marriage. Gaps in civil status and identity documentation, coupled with family separation, can leave forcibly displaced children at risk of statelessness if not resolved.
Iraq
Children remain highly vulnerable and protection concerns are significant. Nearly half of the population of internally displaced school-aged children—some 335,000 children—are out of school. Children who have lived in areas formerly held by the armed group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant are in need of psychosocial support, vaccinations, support to re-enter school, and safe spaces to play.
Over 150 attacks on schools and personnel were verified and at least 31 schools were used by military forces 490 children were reported to have been recruited by military actors 1,168 grave child rights violations affecting 3,601 children were reported 399 children were reported to have been killed and 664 injured as a result of conflict. Actual numbers believed to be much higher.
Strategy
Objective: Children have access to quality protection services
- Increased access to quality community-based child protection and psychosocial support services
- Increased access to quality specialised child protection services
- Strengthened national child protection systems
2018 Targets
Syria
- 44,000 girls and boys will receive specialized child protection services
- 85,000 women and men will participate in parenting programmes
- 800,000 girls and boys will participate in structured, sustained child protection or psychosocial support programmes
- 12,000 women and men will be trained on child protection in line with child protection minimum standards
- 1,500,000 individuals will benefit from awareness raising and community events to prevent and respond to child protection issues
Refugee hosting countries in the region
- 123,000 girls and boys will receive specialized child protection services
- 270,000 girls and boys will participate in structured, sustained child protection or psychosocial support programmes
- 64,000 individuals will be trained on protection including child protection and sexual and gender based violence
- 148,000 women and men will participate in parenting programmes4
Iraq5
- 29,000 at risk girls and boys will be provided with child protection specialized services
- 204,000 girls and boys will participate in structured and sustained psychosocial support programmes
- 23,000 women and men caregivers will participate in parenting programs
- 3,000 child protection workers will be trained to provide child protection assistance
- 8,000 members of community based child protection structures will be trained on child protection approaches
- 236,000 girls, boys, women and men will be reached by awareness raising activities on child protection
2017 Achievements*
Syria
- 895,800 protection interventions were conducted through community based protection services (including awareness raising on protection risks, recreational and community mobilization activities, targeted social and economic support for persons with specific protection needs and vulnerabilities)
- 678,535 girls and boys were engaged in structured, sustained child protection programmes, including psychosocial support
- 65,692 women and men participated in parenting programmes
- 1,269,122 individuals benefited from child protection awareness raising and community events
- 1,541 adults and children groups/committees were supported to ensure the community’s active participation to prevent and respond to child protection issues
- 19,232 girls and boys received specialized child protection services through case management.
- 9,730 men and women were trained on child protection in line with child protection minimum standards
Refugee hosting countries
- In the first half of 2017 NLG partners working in the child protection sub-sector have worked with colleagues in the education, livelihoods and protection sectors to implement a jointly developed regional framework to address child labour in refugee hosting countries.
- A similar intersectoral approach is also being taken to child marriage, where efforts to strengthen existing programmatic approaches and to scale up interventions are complemented by initiatives to build the evidence base in this area, including through a regionwide multi-country study
- 136,166 girls and boys have received specialised child protection services
Iraq
- 16,208 caregivers participated in parenting programmes
- 675,314 children (261,391 boys 0-13 years, 92,343 Adolescent boys 14-17 years, 244,383 girls 0-13 years, 77,197 adolescent girls 14-17 years) participated in sustained psychosocial support programmes.
- 30,384 children (11,694 boys 0-13 years, 4058 adolescent boys 14-17 years, 10,812 girls 0-13 years, 3820 adolescent girls 14-17 years) at risk supported through case management system
- 1,623 unaccompanied children (645 boys, 391 adolescent boys, 475 girls, 112 adolescent girls) identified and documented of which 1,331 (511 boys, 342 adolescent boys, 377 girls, 101 adolescent girls) reunified
- 6,003 separated children (2248 boys, 1052 adolescent boys, 2065 girls, 638 adolescent girls) identified and documented of which 1,549 (569 boys, 306 adolescent boys, 459 girls, 215 adolescent girls) reunified
NLG Child Protection Technical focal points
- Holly Berman; Regional SGBV Advisor, UNHCR berman@unhcr.org