Protection of Children in Disaster and War Neil Boothby A Child’s Rights to a Healthy Environment

Protection of Children in Disaster and War Neil Boothby A Child’s Rights to a Healthy Environment The Center for the Human Rights of Children The 2008 Symposium on the Human Rights of Children Loyola University Chicago

Need for Systemic Approach Emergency efforts focus on vulnerable children may be important in early phase but it also leads to palliative approaches and small scale projects over the long term Falls short of a systematic protection response and has little sustaining impact on protective enhancement in the long term. Human rights approach to programming suggests that a wider range of interventions and systems development must be considered.

Protective Environment Framework There are eight key elements identified in this framework of the “protective environment for children” (UNICEF, 2006): • Monitoring and Reporting • Governmental commitment to fulfilling protection right • Protective legislation and enforcement • Attitudes, traditions, customs, behavior and practices • Open discussion and engagement with child protection issues • Children’s life skills, knowledge and participation • The capacity to protect among those around children • Services for recovery and reintegration

Four Questions Is the Protective Environment Framework capable of bringing greater coherence to activities that strengthen child protection in wars, natural disasters and refugee movements? What framework areas need to adapted to address child protection concerns in different types of emergencies? What are the key areas of focus for the eight framework elements ? Is it possible to develop objectives, tools and procedures for monitoring progress? Note: Protection focus: exploitation and abuse—not nutrition and health.

Application Requires Generic Adaptation In addition to the crisis itself, an assessment of potential protective mechanisms should take into account social and economic conditions that: • Risk the commoditization of children as economic units at a young age. • Lead to extreme gender division and inequity. • Shape childhood and adolescence in other harsh and exploitative ways.

Generic Adaptation A humanitarian crisis may provide unique opportunities to introduce positive change • Asian tsunami and end of political conflict in Aceh • “Form 8” reform in Darfur Food Drop, S. Sudan

Generic Adaptation • Intent of the government and other parties is key to protection strategy. • Consider intent at multiple levels: community, district, provincial, and national levels. • A range of groups may be benefiting (Governments, Militia fighters, Economic elites, Members of the Diaspora.

1. Monitoring and Reporting A minimal standard should be the establishment of a child protection monitoring and reporting system capable of capturing short-term changes and long-term trends. Operational links need to be established between data collection and program and advocacy responses.

Moving from Incident to Incidence Methodologies • Incidence: total number of rights violations in a given time period • Prevalence: proportion of the child population victimized in a specific time period • Use of repeat measures, such as baselines and follow-up assessments against which incidence and prevalence can be examined over time to better monitor upward or downward trends

2. Commitment of Authorities to Fulfilling Protection Rights

Commitment of Authorities to Fulfilling Protection Rights • Commitment of all duty barriers to child protection is critical. • Key government ministries, such as labor and social-cultural welfare, may be well-positioned to address the economic and social dimensions of an emergency. • Mandated and non-mandated international agencies may assume roles in emergencies that place them in positions of serving as “de facto” or “on-the-ground” authorities.

3. Protective Legislation and Enforcement • An adequate legislative framework to protect children from abuse, and its implementation and enforcement are essential elements of a protective environment. • The absence of these safeguards in emergencies may be symptomatic of a general lack of procedural protections and support service. • Many countries and communities have formal and informal systems of justice, and the adequacy of protective legislation and enforcement needs to be examined across these interrelated systems.

4. Attitudes, Traditions, Customs, Behavior &Practices • Family, kinship, tribal and, at times, feudal relationships are part of complex socio-economic systems that maintain order and assign roles and responsibilities to all members of society. • Of particular interest to a protective environment perspective are the expectations made of children, and the features of community life that may be considered protective (or harmful) of them.

Capacity of communities to utilize a wide range of intricate social mechanisms to maintain social cohesion within and between villages Means of supporting or reestablishing traditional mechanisms that have a protective value Commoditization of children as a source of labor Control of girls (and their sexuality) through marked gender disparity Attitudes, Traditions, Customs, Behavior &Practices

5. Open Discussion and Engagement with Protection Issues • Children need to be free to speak up about child protection concerns affecting them or other children. Safeguards? • Parents, teachers, religious leaders and other immediate child care actors must be willing to openly acknowledge (and address) critical child protection concerns. How? • Media attention and civil society engagement with child protection issues can strengthen a protective environment. Policy versus fundraising. • New methods are emerging to elicit local definitions of protection and well being concerns. How to disseminate?

Open Discussion and Engagement with Protection Issues Concerns that members of the affected population are likely to know more about a crisis than outside agencies: • Nature and timing of the threats they confront • Mindset and habits of those who threaten them • Resources within the community • History of previous threats and coping mechanisms • Practical possibilities for resisting threats • Optimal linkage between community and agency responses

6. Children’s Life Skills, Knowledge & Participation • With the right information, children can draw upon their knowledge, skills and resilience to reduce their risk of exploitation • Youth engagement requires monitoring • Core protective factors in schools include: • Adequate teacher-student ratios • Elimination of humiliation, bullying and corporal punishment • Safeguards against sexual abuse and exploitation • Child Friendly Spaces: Who not What

7. The Capacity to Protect Among Those Around Children • Assessments may need to focus on how the emergency has affected: • Family livelihoods • Gender, labor and child care roles • Teachers roles, corporal punishment, indoctrination, and recruitment in schools • Roles of traditional and religious leaders and their commitments to child protection

The Capacity to Protect Among Those Around Children • Humanitarian agencies often serve as frontline protection providers. • Protection by presence” strategies are limited with very few agencies maintaining an active presence beyond state capitals or subsidized camps. • Many humanitarian organizations have been unwilling to engage in child protection concerns because they do not. have the capacity to respond to serious problems.

8. Services for Recovery & Reintegration • This element considers what resources are available to support children when prevention activities have failed. • These types of services and activities are often the main—or exclusive—child protection focus in emergencies. • NGOs: working with women and children is non-political, and engaging with government or other hard-to-reach duty barriers is avoided. • Research in emergency settings: projects that exclusively focus on the individual child—and never link to broader government systems—have little-to-no impact on long term protective environments.

Good Practice Paradox • If one agency tries to provide services to vulnerable groups—and at the same time tries to promote systemic solutions to child protection needs—the agency is likely to fail at both. • Understanding the mandates, programming capacities, priorities and expertise of the agencies and organizations on the ground. • Determining how agencies can best combine actions to meet critical needs rapidly and promote long term solutions. • Actively coordinating these varied and complementary actions

Tools • Indicator Checklist Identifying key issues to assess in emergency settings PEF in Emergencies

1. Monitoring and Reporting • GOVERNMENT CAPACITY: What is the capacity of government or other duty barriers in data collection? • AGENCY COORDINATION: What coordination mechanisms exist for inter-agency data collection on key child protection concerns? • CHANGES & TRENDS: Is the child protection monitoring and reporting system capable of capturing short-term changes and long-term trends? • BREADTH & SCOPE: Does the existing data collection system extend beyond monitoring child soldiers and other war crimes? Indicator Checklist PEF in Emergencies

4. Attitudes, traditions, customs, behavior and practices • EXPECTATIONS: What are the expectations made of children, and the features of community life that may be considered protective (or harmful) of them? • DISRUPTION: How has the emergency disrupted the capacity of families and communities to fully utilize the social mechanisms that have previously been used to maintain cohesion within and between villages? • HOSTILE FEATURES: What are the features of community life that appear profoundly hostile to the welfare of children? • TRADITIONAL HARMS: What traditional practices (e.g. FGM) exist that represent a significant protection risk? Indicator Checklist PEF in Emergencies

Tools • Assessment Summary Putting the information together in a profile to assist decision-making PEF in Emergencies

Assessment Summary PEF in Emergencies

Tools • Integrity Analysis Summarizing current strengths and weaknesses in the overall protective environment PEF in Emergencies

Integrity Analysis PEF in Emergencies

Case Studies • Darfur • Aceh • Sri Lanka Not PROSPECTIVE but RETROSPECTIVE PEF in Emergencies

Assessment Summary: Aceh PEF in Emergencies

Integrity Analysis: Aceh PEF in Emergencies

Protection of Children in Disaster and War Neil Boothby A Child’s Rights to a Healthy Environment