Case Management of Separated and Unaccopanied Children
Separated, Unaccompanied and Missing Children in Emergencies: Guidelines and Framework of Action
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 3
List of abbreviations 4
Definitions 5
1. Introduction and Background 5
2. Overall Guiding Principles 8
3. Before the Emergency – Prevention and Preservation 9
4. Identification of Separated and Unaccompanied Children 10
5. Interim Care 14
6. Family Tracing 17
7. Family Reunification 18
8. Alternative Long-term Arrangements 20
9. Summary - Case Management 21
ANNEXES 22
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the support provided by the NDMA for the development of the SOPs throughout the process. We would like to thank Ms. Nyghat Siddique Advisor Gender and Cell (GCC) NDMA for her consistent support and valuable input during the development of the process. We would also like to thank Mr. Kazim Shuaib, Program Officer Child Rights, GCC, for coordinating and facilitating the whole process.
The expert inputs of Mr. Jawad Ullah from the Save the Children and Ms. Elizabeth Cossor from UNICEF were of immense value as both of them not only reviewed the reports and SOPs but also provided insights which helped in making the SOPs more relevant and appropriate.
Inputs, insights and information provided by all stakeholders including: DG PDMA Baluchistan Mr. TahirMunir, DG PDMA Punjab Mr. Khalid Sherdil, DG SDMA AJK Mr. Sohail Akram, Director Admin PDMA Sindh Ms. Iffat Malik, Donor Liaison Officer and Focal person for Gender PDMA KPK Ms. Anika Khan, Child Protection Specialists from UNICEF in all places and the representatives of civil society organizations during the provincial visits, helped in understanding the context and on ground realities in a much better way and in contextualizing the SOPs.
Harun Rashid Chowdhury (Save the Children)
Aftab Ahmed Awan (Consultant, UNICEF)
List of Abbreviations
AJK Azad Jamu and Kashmir
BR Birth Registration
CCWD Commission for Child Welfare and Development
CERD Centre for Excellence in Resource Development (NGO)
CNIC Computerized National Identity Cards
CM Chief Minister
CPWB Child Protection and Welfare Bureau
CPU Child Protection Unit
CRC UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
IDPs Internally Displaced Persons
IMS Information Management System
GCC Gender and Child Cell (NDMA)
KPK Khyber Pakhtoonkwah
NDMA National Disaster Management Authority
NGOs Non-Governmental Organizations
PCPC Police Centre for Protection of Children
PDMA Provincial Disaster Management Authority
SDMA State Disaster Management Authority
SOPs Standard Operating Procedures
SOS Village Save Our Souls Village
SWD Social Welfare Department
Definitions
Child: The UN Convention on the Child 1989 (Art1): ‘A child is anyone below the age of 18 years unless, under the (national) law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier.’ This refers to both girls and boys.
Child Protection: Child Protection is the measures and structures to prevent and respond to abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence affecting children and the promotion of their psychosocial wellbeing. It requires a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral approach including governments, multilateral agencies, donors, communities, care givers, and families as well as a close partnership with children. Child protection also aims to strengthen the capacity of all these actors to protect children and to develop effective and responsive systems and mechanisms.
Emergency Evacuation: The immediate and rapid movement of people away from the threat or actual occurrence of a hazard.[1]
Separated Child: Separated children are those separated from both parents, or from their previous legal or customary primary care-giver, but not necessarily from other relatives. These may, therefore, include children accompanied by other adult family members.[2]
Unaccompanied Child: Unaccompanied children are those who are separated from both parents and are not being cared for by an adult who, by law or custom, is responsible to do so.[3]
Orphan: Orphans are children, both of whose parents are known to be dead. In some countries, however, a child who has lost one parent is called an orphan. [4]
Missing child: A child registered as separated or unaccompanied but remains classified as missing until identified and reunified by parents/kin. A list of missing children is generated from reports by caregivers of their children whose whereabouts is unknown during a disaster. May have died, have been abducted, or received by an agency/individual for temporary protection.
1. Introduction and Background
In all emergencies, children are at risk of being separated from their families. Having lost the protection of parents or guardians at a time, these children are more likely to experience abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence. Emergencies often cause breakdown in social structures and protective mechanism normally provided by the state, community, and family. The state as main duty-bearer has the overall responsibility to ensure a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to protect and promote the best interest of the children during the emergencies.
The formulation of appropriate Standards/Guidelines is vital in order to carry out the plan of action in a respectful and professional manner.
The overall response to emergencies in Pakistan does not have a child protection focus and requires specialized inputs. This is essential in view of the fact that the complexity and magnitude of child protection violations in Pakistan. Disasters not only increase the pre-existing vulnerability of children but subject more children to possibly abusive and exploitative situations. Thus child protection interventions are imperative in relief, recovery and rehabilitation phases.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is the lead agency at the Federal level to deal with whole spectrum of disaster management activities. It is the executive arm of the National Disaster Management Commission (NDMC), which has been established under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister, as the apex policy making body in the field of Disaster. In the event of a disaster all stakeholders, including Government Ministries, Institutions, Armed Forces, INGOs, NGOs, and UN Agencies work through and from part of the NDMA to conduct one window operation. NDMA was formed by the Government of Pakistan through an ordinance and has provincial and district chapters. The mandate of the organization is to take measures for the prevention of disasters, the mitigation, the preparedness and the capacity building for dealing with disaster situations as necessary.
In 2010, during the wake of the devastating floods in Pakistan a Gender and Child Cell was established in NDMA with technical assistance from UNICEF with a purpose to support NDMA in response to gender and child specific impacts of the disaster. The Cell advises NDMA on both policy and technical issues for minimum action on specific set of activities required to be taken up for gender and child mainstreaming. The cell also advises on the rapid assessment of needs and impacts for prioritizing actions and enhancing response. The cell facilitates the adoption on international best standards on gender responses in humanitarian settings and is assisting NDMA in forming a gender equality framework. It coordinates activities of UN agencies in gender and child issues and liaises with interagency gender equality advisor based in OCHA.
Assisting NDMA to develop a gender equality framework supports NDMA in consistence and coherence of activities with the government of Pakistan policies of women empowerment, NPA on women development and NPA on child rights.
Save the Children raised the need for a child protection strategy for the emergencies in general and for floods response in particular with the Government of Pakistan on various forums including with the President of Pakistan. As a result, further discussions with NDMA resulted in agreeing on the need for specialized support to NDMA on child protection. In order to guide sustainable child protection activities in the field, to guide resources and to achieve systemic change, Save the Children supported NDMA through the placement of its international CP specialist in NDMA.
At the same time UNICEF also supported the services of a national consultant for NDMA in order to facilitate the process of provincial consultations and situational analysis and the subsequent consultations at the national level. The national consultant was also required to contribute in the process of development of the SOPs in this document.
Co-operation and coordination among all actors concerned is critical for the care and protection of separated and unaccompanied children.
It is important that all action be coordinated with the relevant government authorities. Dialogue and coordination mechanisms need to start in the early phases of the emergency, and be maintained throughout the process. Even for the Army, responsible sometime for evacuation, a minimum CP standard has to be maintained.
Fig source: NDMA Online website - The present structure for Disaster Risk Management in Pakistan
The SOPs in this document have been developed by using the inputs from the provincial, regional consultations organized and feedback received from various stakeholders.
The purpose of these SOPs is to establish a uniform minimum standards and guidelines, or ‘standard procedure’ for Governmental organizations, NGOs, institutions and supporting partners (UN-Agencies) who will lead the humanitarian operations during the emergencies.
In effect, the purpose of the standards is:
a) to provide the most effective and compassionate standard operating guidelines for the separated, unaccompanied and missing children in emergencies;
b) to develop and maintain professional, transparent and accountable guideline practices;
c) to help and support stakeholders in their indispensible task in emergencies; and
d) to protect the rights of the children and accelerate the reunification process in accordance to the prescribed guidelines.
The existing available journal, reports and related literature have also been studied to feed into the preparation of the SOPs. The SOPs are a first of its kind initiative by NDMA to address the child protection issues for the separated, unaccompanied and missing children during the emergencies. It is hoped that these SOPs will help in planning and taking into account the procedures at different stages for the best interest of the children.
2. Overall Guiding Principles
According to the principle of Family Unity (or integrity of the family) all children have a right to a family, and families have a right to care for their children. Unaccompanied and separated children must be provided with services aimed at reuniting them with their parents or primary legal or customary caregivers as quickly as possible. If large numbers of children are separated from their parents or other relatives in an emergency, priority should be given to the most vulnerable, whether accompanied or unaccompanied, taking into account that the latter are likely to be more vulnerable.
The best interests of the child constitute the basic standard for guiding decisions and actions taken to help children, whether by national or international organizations, courts of law, administrative authorities, or legislative bodies. The Inter-agency Guiding Principles should be taken into account when determining the best interests of the child in a given situation.
A child’s opinion should be listened to and given due weight in relation to the child’s age and maturity. Children must be kept informed about plans being made for them.
This includes decisions about placement and care, tracing and reunification. Programs should actively engage children in the prevention of and responses to separation.
Do-No-Harm: it has to be considered if any action could place a child on more protection danger before proceeding e.g., who to share information with.
Non-discrimination: One of the basic tenets of international humanitarian law is that the protection and guarantees it lays down must be granted to all without discrimination. Thus all four Geneva conventions and both Additional Protocols provide that the “specific categories of person they protect must be treated humanely (...) without adverse distinction founded on sex...” The Convention of the Rights of the Child reinforces this key principle and states that girls have additional, specific needs which have to be taken into account in programming for their care and protection.
Psycho–social support: Psychosocial support is the process of meeting a person's emotional, social, mental and spiritual needs. All of these are essential elements of positive human development. Psychosocial support is needed by all children. It promotes their psychological and emotional wellbeing, as well as their physical and mental development.Psychosocial support helps to buildresiliencyin children. It also supports families to provide for the physical, economic, educational, and social and health needs of children. Children are resilient, but when faced with extreme adversity and trauma, they and their families can need extra support. Psychosocial support builds internal and external resources for children and their families to be able to understand and deal with adverse events.[5]
The special needs of girls must be taken into account throughout times of crises, may they be armed conflict and their aftermath, man-made or natural disasters etc. They are more vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation as well as facing a higher risk of neglect when it comes to protection and aid. Appropriate responses must be developed at all stages of programming.
As an example see the Security Council Resolution 1261 (1999) on children and armed conflict which urges all parties to armed conflicts to take special measures to protect children, in particular girls.[6]
3. Before the Emergency – Prevention and Preservation
There are a number of preventing activities that can be taken before an emergency strikes in order to prevent/minimize separation of children from their families, even in extreme emergencies.
Approaches can be made to the relevant authorities and other parties so as to reduce the risk of separation and to preserve the family unit under the difficult circumstances of i.e. displacement. These contacts aimed at preventing accidental and deliberate separation and promoting reunification must be based on an understanding of the causes of separation. Measures for the prevention of separation include[7]:
· Awareness raising amongst governments, staff of local and international NGOs, religious groups and communities, especially women, since they are the primary care-givers in emergencies to the importance of preserving the family unit for the child’s benefit;
· Families in emergency prone areas need to be made aware of the importance of keeping the family together during an emergency and to decide a meeting point in the case they would get separated.