Meeting the needs of refugee children: is UNHCR protection sufficient?

Refugee children, especially adolescents, are acutely at risk from the effects of violence and conflict. Could the international community do more to offer them protection from sexual exploitation and forcible military recruitment? How could the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) use community services and education as tools of protection?

An evaluation by Valid International (‘Meeting the rights and protection needs of refugee children’) reviews UNHCR operations in eight countries to determine the agency’s success in meeting the rights and protection needs of refugee children. Arguing that the main element missing in protection work with refugee children is social protection, it sets out recommendations to complement and sustain the legal and physical approaches more traditional to UNHCR’s protection work.

The agency has long prioritised child protection. In 1994, UNHCR established guidelines on its work with refugee children and in 1997 adopted a new strategy following the landmark study by Graca Machel on the impact of armed conflict on children.

Despite this commitment, the evaluation found that UNHCR field staff are confused about what child protection means or what UNHCR’s policy prioritisation of refugee children entails. There is a limited understanding of child rights as the framework for child protection, lack of location and culture-specific situation analysis, insufficient recognition of the social aspects of protection and poor integration of protection work with community services.

In analysing the confusion, the evaluation found that the roles of general versus specialist staff with regards to work with refugee children are unclear. The agency’s Action for the Rights of the Child (ARC) training initiative has produced high quality resource materials but the sheer volume of ARC materials has intimidated generalist staff and not reached frontline staff, especially the nationals who are most involved with refugee children. Momentum generated by the Machel study and special reporting on follow-up strategies may have given the impression that work with refugee children somehow falls outside the UNHCR’s core mandate and activities. 

The team also found that:

• Staff feel that recent UNHCR budget cuts have had a larger impact on children.
• Recommendations in earlier evaluations urging the UNHCR to be more accountable on child protection issues have not been acted upon.
• Education services, though vital to meeting protection needs, are inadequately supported with funds or human resources.
• By setting frequent and multiple policy priorities (children, women and the environment amongst others) prioritisation within the UNHCR has become mechanical and thus is not taken seriously by over-burdened staff.

The report found that child protection works best in field situations where there is active collaboration between community services and protection staff, complemented by pro-active support, mobilisation and the use of community networks. Community services and education functions are central to the protection of refugee children.

The evaluation calls on the UNHCR to:

• ensure that all field protection and community services officers, including national staff, are trained in using the agency’s guidelines and ARC
• use situation analysis which incorporates opportunities and resources, socio-cultural practices, community leaders and political openings
• engage more proactively with UNICEF and other UN partners, local government agencies, local and national non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and refugees themselves
• conduct an inter-sectoral pilot mainstreaming exercise in at least one country per region.

Source(s):
‘Meeting the rights and protection needs of refugee children: an independent evaluation of the impact of UNHCR’s activities’, by Valid International, UNHCR, EPAU/2001/02, May 2002 Full document.

Funded by: UNHCR

id21 Research Highlight: 30 May 2003

Further Information:
Valid International
3 Kames Close
Oxford OX4 3LD
UK

Tel: +44 (0)1865 395810
Fax: +44 (0)709 239 7830
Contact the contributor: alistair@validinternational.org

Valid International, UK

Team leader for the evaluation:
Beth Verhey
East 38th Street, 6th Floor
New York
NY, 10016
USA

Tel: +1 (0)646 229 2042 or +1 (0)212 880 9157
Contact the contributor: bethverhey@hotmail.com

Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit (EPAU)
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Case Postale 2500
CH-1211 Genève 2 Dépôt
Switzerland

Tel: +41 22 739 8111
Contact the contributor: hqep00@unhcr.ch

Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit, UNHCR

Other related links:
'Separating children from their rights? How Europe fails child asylum seekers'

'Could do much better: Britain’s treatment of young refugees under the spotlight'

'In the line of fire - the mental health of Palestinian children'

The Children and Armed Conflict Unit provides reports on the impact on children

UNICEF reports on Children in war

More from the CDI's Children and Armed Conflict Project

Global Issues focuses Children, Conflict and the Military