Disaster Risk Reduction and Child Protection Technical Note

Disaster Risk Reduction and Child Protection Technical Note

1.  Background

1.1 Purpose

In response to UNICEF’s recognition of an increase in disaster risk, due in part to rapid urbanisation, environmental degradation and climate change, UNICEF developed a Programme Guidance Note on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in March 2011. In support of this, a series of five Technical Notes, one for each of UNICEF’s five main programme sectors (Health, Nutrition, Education, WASH and Child Protection), has been developed. These are intended to help practitioners identify how sector work can contribute to reducing disaster risk.

1.2 Disaster Risk and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)

Disaster risk is the potential loss expressed in lives, health status, livelihoods, assets and services, which could occur in a particular community or a society due to the impact of a natural hazard.[1] In other words, disaster risk is a ‘disaster waiting to happen’, as is the case for the high numbers of vulnerable people forced to live on flood plains, in drought prone areas or in unplanned urban settlements.

Disaster risk is commonly understood as a function of hazards, vulnerability, exposure and capacities, which can be described in the following formula:

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) is a systematic approach to identifying, assessing and reducing that risk. Specifically, the purpose of disaster risk reduction is to minimise vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout a society in order to avoid (prevent) or to limit (mitigate and prepare for) the adverse impacts of natural hazards, and facilitate sustainable development.

In 2005, a global framework for DRR was developed and endorsed by 168 UN member states. The Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) ‘Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters’ highlights five priorities for action for reducing disaster risk: (1) making DRR a priority, (2) identifying, assessing and monitoring risks, (3) building understanding and awareness, (4) reducing the underlying risk factors, and (5) strengthening preparedness at all levels.[2]

This technical note provides practical guidance to adapting UNICEF’s existing programmes to protect them from disasters, to decrease disaster risks and to build individual and community-level resilience.[3]

1.3  UNICEF and DRR

Disasters negatively impact children’s and women’s rights, disproportionately affect poor countries and poor communities, erode development gains and set back progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Increased school drop-out, high incidence of disease and mortality, and a worsening of the nutrition status in the affected population are all likely results of a disaster. Disaster risk is therefore not only the highest among the most vulnerable but exacerbates existing vulnerabilities and inequalities of girls, boys, women and men.

While poor development or under-development are key drivers of disaster risk, humanitarian action too can influence disaster risk. UNICEF therefore considers disasters as both a development and a humanitarian concern. UNICEF has incorporated DRR in its Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action (CCC) and is taking steps to incorporate DRR throughout its programme sectors. To facilitate this, UNICEF is increasingly including a multi-hazard risk assessment in the country office Situation Analyses.[4]

With its local, sub-national and national presence before, during and after disasters, UNICEF is well placed to support the capacity development of governments/partners. This not only helps ensure social services are ‘risk informed’ but can better link community DRR projects with national, provincial and district level policies and plans.

Whilst these Technical Notes focus on what each programme sector can contribute towards reducing disaster risk, it is important to recognise that effective risk reduction requires multi-sectoral action. Moreover, DRR also requires linking effectively with policies and programmes in social protection, conflict prevention and other risk management approaches that contribute to resilience.

UNICEF has developed four goals for its DRR work (adapted from the Hyogo Framework for Action priorities) to ensure efforts to reduce disaster risk focus specifically on children:

2.  Child Protection and DRR

2.1 Introduction

Disasters can heighten the vulnerability of children in many ways, by disrupting the protective mechanisms provided by the state, schools, community and family, and putting additional strain on family resources. As a result, girls and boys in disaster affected areas may be at increased risk of neglect, separation, abandonment, abuse, economic exploitation, illegal adoption and multiple forms of violence. These may stem from inadequate coping mechanisms by families and communities. Evidence shows, for example, that domestic violence often increases in the aftermath of a disaster. Unaccompanied girls and boys, child-headed households and women often face particular risks, including trafficking, forced marriage (including bride sales for girls), child labour, survival sex and forced prostitution.

The experience of living through disaster, as well as the uncertainties of its aftermath, can also highly affect the psychosocial well being of children and their caregivers. It is normal for children to have grief and sadness, following experiences such as the death of friends, the destruction of their homes, sense of security and changes in normal routines. During such situations, children are usually better protected by their parents or the person who takes care of them on a regular basis. However, when disasters do occur, children will have an increased need for reassurance, additional time and attention, and establishment of regular routine as early as possible. Engagement of children in recovery or rehabilitation efforts, within their level of capacity, can build their self-esteem and enhance relationships within the community. A lack of such care and attention can increase children’s sense of powerlessness and loss, and as a result, they can become more vulnerable to violence, abuse and exploitation Where natural hazards are known and anticipated by communities, particularly cyclical floods and storms, families and communities can be better prepared and more capable of managing such crisis situations.

Strong child protection measures can play an important role in preventing or reducing the possible consequences of a natural hazard, preventing it from becoming a disaster, and helping to create a safer and more resilient community for children. Child protection and DRR programming, therefore, needs to encompass activities aimed at preventing and responding to the specific protection risks for children in times of disaster. This requires an assessment of potential risks faced by children and drivers of these risks, as well as an analysis of what preventive measures can be developed to mitigate them in conjunction with other sectors.

Much of UNICEF’s existing child protection work is already helping to reduce disaster risk; therefore many of the DRR actions in the table below are not ‘new’ to UNICEF. Instead it is a case of ensuring existing programmes and work are consistently taking into account disaster risk. The first step is to ensure that child protection is part of any multi-hazard risk assessments that take place informing the country situation analysis or at any stage during the UNICEF Country Programme cycle and Early Warning Early Action (EWEA) system.

2.2 Guidance for Child Protection Interventions

The table below provides some sample key interventions that can be made through the child protection sector to reduce disaster risk; it is not intended to be a comprehensive guide. All interventions should form part of a coordinated approach to child protection.

Priority / Prevention[5]/mitigation[6] / Preparedness[7] / Response[8]/Early Recovery[9]
Policy Development and Advocacy (including to ensure that disaster risk reduction is a national and local priority with a strong institutional framework for implementation) / Work with government and partners to develop and implement national and local policies, legislation, systems and services to reduce children’s risks to being separated from their families, exposed to violence, abuse and exploitation and subject to physical and psychological harm in disaster-prone areas
Work with government and other partners to undertake joint advocacy on displacement and other protection risks to children due to disasters
Advocate for adherence to the CRC and its Optional Protocols, the Hague Conventions and the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, among other relevant international instruments for children’s protection. / Work with national partners to ensure emergency preparedness plans for essential services, including child protection services, are in place in all vulnerable areas.
Ensure that child protection systems and networks are linked to the national and regional early warning systems for hazards.
Promote family-based care systems as a post-disaster strategy in compliance with the CRC, the Hague Conventions and the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children / Work with government partners to develop and implement a policy to prevent children from being taken out of the country illegally or contrary to their best interests.
Disseminate information on the relief and rehabilitation efforts, as well as on child protection risks. (These materials should be pre-prepared for dissemination).
Advocate with partners to provide children and women (particularly child-headed households and single women separately from unrelated males) with prioritised access to humanitarian assistance and to temporary and permanent housing preferably in locations close to extended family, support services
Support efforts to adhere to the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children
Coordination (including collaborating with and coordinating with inter-agency partners, academic institutions, women’s groups, service providers etc.) / Ensure and promote sharing of information with other UNICEF programme sectors and partners (including the cluster system). / Develop an Inter-Agency Child Protection Preparedness Plan based on identified risks and building on identified capacities. Establish an awareness of the type and extent of data currently collated and build on such existing systems / Mainstream child protection into other sectors’ response work to increase the scale of protection measures and reduce potential protection risks associated with other sectoral interventions
Assessment and Monitoring (including identifying, assessing and monitoring disaster risks and enhancing early warning, existing capacities etc.) / Using data from disaster risk assessments, identify areas and groups of most vulnerable children for targeting of proactive activities, such as focused efforts on system building.
Ensure data on disaster risk assessments and mappings of protection risks are overlaid to identify and target the most vulnerable children.
Support proactive inter-agency monitoring of child protection risks (family separation; abuse; gender-based violence; trafficking; child marriage; abduction; child labour; exploitation; recruitment and use) in relation to hazard risks, to support a sound knowledge base and situation analysis on risks to children, and enable the development of national child protection systems. / Develop proactive inter-agency child protection monitoring system for use in emergencies. / Establish a coordinated inter-agency mechanism to undertake monitoring and situation analysis on priority protection risks and concerns to children.
If in a situation where there is both a natural disaster and an armed conflict, ensure that the monitoring system also includes grave violations against children and women, such as the MRM and MARA[10].
Ensure mechanisms to refer individual cases for necessary support services.
Capacity development and service provision (including disaster preparedness for effective response at all levels, human resources and capacity development; internal UNICEF HQ capacity as well as partners) / Ensure capacity development is targeted so that emphasis is on building systems in the areas that have been identified as most vulnerable, and ensure that these systems are ready to continue to function in emergency situations.
Ensure social welfare systems are in place that can identify and support children at risk (including identification, tracing and family reunification) and children who have already been abused, and can remain active in an emergency.
Provide cash transfers (social protection) for vulnerable children in high-risk areas to strengthen family-based care.
Support universal birth registration, in the framework of the country’s civil registry, including through use of modern technology.
Support establishment of formal Best Interests Determination processes by authorities for unaccompanied and separated children and other children at risk.
Train staff and partners about child protection in an emergency, including the recommendations of the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children.
Train key staff in NGOs and government partners on psychosocial first aid. / Establish information management systems such as the ‘inter-agency child protection information monitoring system’ to facilitate case management, with appropriate CP referral services in place
Develop a complete geographic mapping (including GPS locations) of alternative care facilities for children, in the most vulnerable disaster-prone areas, and identify service locations, such as social and psychosocial services.
Promote measures to safeguard birth/civil registration data and other ID documents, e.g. systematically integrating local registration in a central database.
Establish permanent ‘Safe Spaces’ for children and women in disaster-prone areas as part of the community based child protection system.
Train national child protection systems on their respective roles in the emergency response and ensure coordination mechanisms can be rapidly activated. / Identify and register unaccompanied/separated children through the use of common registration forms, and the identification of one agency to house the database that will be used for identification, documentation, tracing, reunification and case management.
Establish provision of cash transfers for vulnerable families.
Ensure access to birth registration facilities in disaster-affected areas, e.g. mobile birth registration services and birth registration at clinics, and provide timely channels for replacing lost or destroyed birth certificates and other identity documentation.
Awareness and Community Mobilization (including strengthening capacity of communities, strengthening the awareness and skills of key community members on DRR, protection, etc.) / Promote community awareness of the links between child protection issues and natural hazards and train communities and local partners on DRR.
Strengthen social networks within the community to enhance the capacity of communities and families to care for their children by identifying, encouraging and enhancing already existing positive traditions and coping mechanisms.
Support community initiatives and outreach work (surveillance mechanisms).
Increase communities’, families’ and children’s awareness about gender-based violence and other child protection risks and the importance of accessing health (including HIV) and psychosocial support.
Distribute child-friendly teaching tools, such as the Riskland game. / Establish permanent ‘Safe Spaces’ in disaster-prone areas as part of the community based child protection system.
Teach life skills (e.g. swimming) and resistance to inappropriate approaches etc.
Promote measures to, and raise community awareness on, safeguarding identity documents.
Prepare communities, residential care centres, remand centres, children’s clubs etc. to react to emergencies, for example by appointing emergency focal points and organising simulation exercises.
Pre-position key messages on child protection. / Create safe (resilient) spaces for children and women, including lactating mothers.
Support community and schools to provide structured activities for children, including promoting play, art sporting and education activities that promote a routine and help children express their experiences and feelings.
Engage adolescent girls and boys as actors in providing support to their communities (e.g. as facilitators in safe spaces).
Organise group discussions on how the community may help at-risk people and support community-based child protection mechanisms (e.g. child protection committees).
Make camps and evacuation centres safer through floodlighting and night patrols.