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No one wants children to suffer the harshness of life in poverty. This can drive some parents to entrust their children to an orphanage or to work in domestic service. It can lead some social workers to remove children from a home because their family is poor. There are times when these are the best options available: the children will be better fed and the parents may have the time to overcome a crisis and build a more stable home. Outcomes are far worse when children leave of their own accord and end up on their own in the streets. But even in the best of…
Children separated from their parents and families because of conflict, population displacement or natural disasters are among the most vulnerable. Separated from those closest to them, these children have lost the care and protection of their families in the turmoil, just when they most need them. They face abuse and exploitation, and even their very survival may be threatened. They may assume adult responsibilities, such as protecting and caring for younger sisters and brothers. Children and adolescents who have lost all that is familiar – home, family, friends, stability – are potent…
WHAT: A guide for camp management agencies that provides instruction on the care and protection of all children (under 18), as well as those with specific needs, such as unaccompanied and separated children, child heads of households, children formerly associated with armed forces, and out-of-school and unemployed adolescents and youth.
WHO: Practitioners, program managers and policy makers involved in refugee and/or IDP camp management.
WHERE: Global relevance.
WHY: This guide outlines the…
The reforms undertaken during the transition to a market economy have had an uneven and divergent social impact on the countries within the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. It is now recognized by governments in many parts of the region that the policy of using institutional care for children with welfare needs is both ineffective and expensive. Despite reforms, the quality of care within institutions and in the new community- based services is still inconsistent and in many cases does not meet the requirements of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The…
One of the legacies of the command economy in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (Europe and Central Asia or ECA region) is a social protection system for vulnerable individuals which focuses heavily on institutional care. Universal social protection was provided to families in the form of guaranteed jobs and old-age pensions, as well as child allowances and benefits in kind such as housing, education, and health care. If an individual needed help beyond this level of universal support, an institutional placement was offered where available. Families, in turn were…
Wars deprive millions of children of an education, yet education in emergencies has not traditionally occupied a prominent place in humanitarian thinking. No one dies from not going to school, and other life-threatening needs – for food, water, shelter or healthcare – can at first glance seem more pressing. Amid conflict and crisis, education programming has been viewed as a luxury, and a task best left to the development community.
This paper argues for a reappraisal of the position of education in emergency programming. It explores the links between education and the wider protection…
The purpose of this case study was to learn from boys and girls, their siblings, peers, parents, guardians and others about children’s networks of support and the joys and challenges of their daily lives. It was felt that the situation of separated refugee children needed to be considered alongside that of refugee children who live with their parents: to date, nearly all research with separated children has been done in isolation from the issues of broader relevance to refugee children in general. This study thus aimed to place the needs, circumstances and perspectives of separated Congolese…
Child sexual abuse and exploitation is a global phenomenon. It exists in most cultures irrespective of material wealth and state ideology. The World Health Organisation Report on Violence and Health (2002) states that about twenty percent of women and five to ten percent of men have suffered sexual abuse as children. Studies from around the world appear to confirm these figures, although some studies have higher figures (Commodities in Stigma and Shame 2001). Furthermore, the UN reports that millions of children are annually being exploited by the sex industry.
Child sexual abuse occurs…
The last 10 years have seen not just an increase in armed conflicts, but also increasingly large numbers of separated children in situations of conflict and refugee movements. The majority of children become separated accidentally, in the chaos of war and flight, but in some instances (such as El Salvador) children were abducted and forcibly separated from their families: in other situations child soldiers are forcibly, or voluntarily, recruited into armed forces, often then losing touch with their families. About 100,000 children were registered as separated and requiring work to try to…
This paper reviews the experience of involving children in the various case studies initiated by the Save the Children Alliance research initiative entitled Care and Protection of Separated Children in Emergencies. It examines the different ways in which children were involved – as informants, in the planning and management of the study, in the analysis of data, in respondent validation and finally as researchers or research assistants. Although the CPSC case studies provide examples of all of these different ways of involving children, none of them should be seen as the “right” way: rather…