Attachments
Introduction and Background
Now entering its seventh year, the conflict in Syria continues to take a huge toll on the lives of children: almost 3 million children have never known anything but war in their short lives, 5.8 million boys and girls in Syria need humanitarian assistance and protection, with nearly 7 million living in poverty. Overall, around 2.8 million children are living in hard to reach areas, with over 280,000 children living under siege. In total, 2.7 million children are internally displaced.5
Against a backdrop of relentless violence, continuous displacement, deepening poverty and a persistent lack of access to even the most basic necessities, children endure multiple protection risks and violations of their rights on a daily basis: grave child rights violations with countless deaths and injuries due to the persistent use of explosive weapons in civilian areas, family separation, physical and sexual violence, recruitment and use, torture, kidnapping, detention, child marriage, engagement in hazardous forms of labour, lack of birth certificates all of this resulting in significant levels of psychosocial distress.
The 2017 Whole of Syria Child Protection Needs Overview: A Compilation of Child Protection Data Collected for the 2017 Syria Humanitarian Needs Overview aims to provide analysis of child protection needs and risks at governorate level to support child protection actors in programme development, resource mobilisation and advocacy to respond to the protection needs of children in Syria. The 2017 Whole of Syria Child Protection Needs Overview is based on a series of assessments and data, as detailed in the overview of the methodology below. The child protection issues outlined in this report were prioritised for new data collection in 2016 on the grounds of major data gaps, feasibility to collect information and lessons learned from previous data collection exercises. Child Protection actors, working to prevent and respond to abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence against children, are encouraged to consider the breath and diversity of issues affecting children in Syria. Child Protection issues should always be viewed as interconnected and compounding, rarely do children experience child protection issues in isolation, e.g. an accompanied child may face increased risk of being engaged in hazardous labour, and in turn, that child is more likely to experience other forms of violence and psychosocial distress.
This report should be read alongside the 2017 Protection Needs Overview and Voices: Assessment Findings of the Humanitarian Needs Overview produced by the GBV Area of Responsibility.
2017 Child Protection Response
The 2017 child protection response strategy, in line with the No Lost Generation framework, is working to improve access to quality child protection services through: (i) expanding the reach of quality and community-based child protection interventions as a way to mitigate protection risks, including through interventions that address harmful practices and negative coping practices (e.g. child marriage, child labour, child discipline); (ii) improving the quality of child protection specialised services, including case management, to address the needs of children who are survivors or at risk of violence, abuse and exploitation. This includes ensuring that a minimum professional cohort of social workers exists, working with both government institutions and NGOs, and systematising efforts to build a sustainable child protection workforce as a way to scale up reach. Working with other sectors is a priority to respond in a more comprehensive way to address complex issues such as child labour. Documenting child rights violations within the framework of the UN Security Council mandated Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism on Grave Violations against Children (SCR1612, 2005) to inform advocacy and programming underpins the sub-sector’s operational delivery.6
Child protection programmes planned for 2017 under Syria Humanitarian Response Plan will reach 1.6 million individuals with awareness raising and community engagement activities on child protection issues, 915,000 girls and boys and structured and sustained child protection and psychosocial support activities, 80,000 men and women in parenting programmes, 44,000 girls and boys with specialised child protection services, such as case management. In order to do so $75.9 million in funding is required.